


Conspirare

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, M/M, Romance, Song Lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-01-20
Updated: 2000-01-20
Packaged: 2017-12-11 02:03:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/792776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist





	1. Chapter 1

This story has been split into two parts for easier loading.

## Conspirare

by Rhipodon Society

Author's webpage: <http://www.geocities.com/soho/square/6381>

This story takes place not long after the resolution to S2 (whatever that turns out to be, and whenever we get to see it). 

No warnings. Spoilers for S2 and Night Shift and I don't remember what else. If you're that jumpy about it, steer clear. 

I don't own the characters (not Jim, Blair, or Simon, anyway), but that's okay, because this is not for profit. Since I believe that you might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb, I've included a whole pile of outside quotations, and I don't own those either. Anyone entertaining thoughts of a lawsuit, say it with me: "You can't get blood from a stone." 

* * *

  
  
_*****  
"Archie."  
"Yes, sir."  
"Do I ever intrude in your private affairs?"  
"Yes, sir. Frequently. But you think you don't, so go right ahead."  
-Rex Stout, Champagne For One  
***** _  
  
   It was funny how that damned dissertation came back to him at odd moments.  
  
[While it seems likely that the sentinel's profound interest in his guide's activities can be attributed to the possessiveness noted above...]  
  
   Jim leaned closer to Blair's desk and squinted, then reached over something that looked like a piece of rock to him and placed his fingertips on the small stack of letters facing Blair's chair. They were just lying there in the open. Easy to read a few lines, just by accident. Easier when they weren't upside down. Jim spun the letters around.  
  
[It's difficult to know,]  
  
   his memory continued,  
  
[whether the sentinel rationalizes his invasive behavior, or simply believes without reservation that his actions are justified by his position.]  
  
   Jim was willing to bet that he knew when Sandburg had come up with that. It would have been shortly after Jim had asked a young woman to explain exactly what she was doing in Professor Sandburg's office when he wasn't there. Well, for god's sake, he hadn't known she was a student. She didn't look nineteen. He hadn't intended to make her cry. Blair had probably thought back on all that "invasive behavior" bullshit with savage satisfaction after Jim had read his thesis without permission. Obviously, he thought he had Jim all figured out.  
   "Go to hell, Sandburg," Jim said, without much malice. He kept having these fights with Blair when Blair wasn't even around, and it was starting to wear him out. If he monitored Blair with "profound interest", that would be Blair's own goddamned fault. Jim didn't want to spend his spare time rescuing Blair from sociopaths when the two of them could be at a movie or a ball game instead, and to that end he had made a point of slapping Blair's hand when the kid reached for fire. Take for example, these letters....  
  
   Prof. Blair Sandburg Department of Anthropology Rainier University Sept. 9/98  
  
   As it happens, I'm as familiar with your work as you are with mine. The field isn't so large that we wouldn't bump into each other I have a copy of your master's thesis. While I have my doubts as to its scientific merit, I like your audacity, as well as the fact that you got away with it. I don't mean any offense, btw. Obviously you and I have postulatory differences, which is why I haven't written you before now. I suspected we would argue to no useful purpose. Given our differences, you have your nerve asking me if I've met any subjects who fit your hypothesis. Lucky for you I like nerve. I do have something I wouldn't mind hearing your views on. But, before I do, I want to know-- have you ever run across any test subjects who fit my hypothesis? In other words... quid pro quo.  
  
   Prof. Tom "Lecter" Maranchuk Dept. of Psychology (Parapsychological division) University of Alberta  
  
  
  
   Prof. Blair Sandburg Dept. of Anthropology Rainier University  
  
   Sept. 21/98  
  
   Thanks for the case studies. That was very open- minded of you. Actually, although you left out the names, I'm pretty sure I recognize some of these people from my own interviews. It would be interesting to see how many test subjects we have in common. I don't think I have anything for you, but I could be mistaken. I'll get to that in a minute. I would like to know, if you don't mind saying, whether you've found the full "sentinel" you were looking for. This isn't just casual curiousity-- your work has implications for mine. I hear you're pretty secretive, so I guess I won't hold my breath for an answer. Anyway... you're probably familiar with the folklore which attributes heightened senses to a variety of supernatural creatures-- among them, vampires and werewolves. You may not be aware that most major cities now host gatherings for people who are fascinated by these genres...some of whom actually claim to be vampires or werewolves. A few months ago, knowing that I followed your work, a friend gave me an article which listed you as a "contributor." The article was on physical stimuli for folklore- related delusions. I'm sure you're intimately familiar with it. I'm sure you meant for people to assume that your "contribution" came from your knowledge of folklore. I choose to assume that you practically wrote that article, then worked out an arrangement for publishing with someone who was (technically speaking) qualified to write it...but that's neither here nor there. The point is, you gave me an idea. It seemed perfectly possible that someone who was clairvoyant or clairaudient (for example) might hear legends about creatures with heightened senses, and take them to heart. We both know that subjects with heightened senses can become unbalanced and exhibit a number of subsequent neuroses. I decided to follow this up by delving into Edmonton's "vampire" community, and I think I have a lead on someone who may have heightened senses. I assume you know a "sentinel" when you see one. I was wondering if you might like to come up here and investigate the matter with me. I'm looking at the first week in October. I think I can convince my department to fly you up here (you do have a unique expertise, after all...and I know a few people who want to meet you) Will that work for you? Or will you be too busy with your sentinel(s)?  
  
   Tom "Van Helsing" Maranchuk Department of Psychology (Parapsychological division) University of Alberta  
  
   Jim carefully slid the letters back into place.  
   "Jesus, Sandburg...I should shoot you with my own gun. At least I know *I* would make it a clean kill." Jim didn't bother to turn when the office door opened, and Blair didn't bother to greet him. He threw books he'd been cradling like children onto his desk, dropped into his chair and gave Jim a tired but friendly smile.  
   "You," he said, "are the first *nice* surprise I've had all day." Jim decided not to shoot him after all.  
   "What the hell is this thing?" he asked, gesturing at the rock. Blair was rifling though the books, tossing the occasional volume into his backpack.  
   "Ancient Mesopotamian artifact." Jim picked it up. It still looked like a rock.  
   "What was it?" Blair transferred the rest of the books to the shelf behind his desk, below a sign which read, Finagle's Third Law of Scientific Research: Always verify your witchcraft.  
   "Actually," he said casually, forcing the last book into place, "it was a bottle opener." Jim turned the rock over, looking...the shut his eyes and listened. Just a little, just the tiniest bit fast.  
   "Liar," he said. Blair sat down, grinning.  
   "Had you going." Jim shrugged.  
   "How am I supposed to know?" Blair didn't answer, and Jim had a feeling that was a kindness.  
   "So, what're you doing here?" Jim's mouth twitched. Only Blair could pull off that particular combination of warmth and suspicion.  
   "I can't just stop by without a reason? I thought I'd take you to dinner." Blair stared at him.  
   "As in, you're buying?"  
   "Yes."  
   "Let me give that some thought. You mind if I think aloud?"  
   "Yeah. But that never stops you." Blair focused on something just over Jim's shoulder.  
   "He not only dropped by unannounced, he offered to buy dinner. Therefore, he wants *something*, and he'll probably bring it up over dinner, when you'll feel obligated to say yes. The thing he fails to realize is, whatever it is he wants, you'd probably do it anyway. And because you're going to do whatever it is anyway, there's no harm in accepting a free dinner first." He moved his eyes to meet Jim's.  
   "Sounds good. Let's go." Jim shook his head.  
   "Is that what you think of me, Sandburg? Here I am, doing something nice with no ulterior motive..." Halfway through that speech, Blair started to smile. Jim relaxed.  
   "You're easy to needle today." Blair said it gently, and Jim heard the question.  
   "It's been a stupid day," he answered. "Come on." He picked up Blair's jacket and almost managed to hand it over without the earth shifting beneath him. The jacket had been a write-off, really, soaked in chlorinated water for so long...but when Blair tried to throw it out, Jim had silently retrieved it from the trash and taken it to be cleaned.  
   "Perfectly good jacket," he'd said upon returning it to Blair. Later that night, he'd heard Blair crying in his room. It wasn't bad crying. Jim had left it alone. Now the kid put that jacket on as though nothing had ever happened. Jim put a hand on the worn material as they walked to the truck.  
  
 _*****  
"Look! I came in here for an argument."  
"Oh! I'm sorry, this is abuse."  
"Oh I see, that explains it."  
   -Monty Python, Argument Clinic  
*****_  
  
   "Tha-"Blair swallowed penne and tried again. "That was *not* smart. What was he thinking?" Jim shrugged.  
   "He was thinking that he needed a car." Late that morning, a rookie had found that the car he needed for his shift hadn't been returned yet. Not wanting to be late, he'd taken the only car he could find-- the public relations department's talking police car.  
   "Did anything *happen*?" Jim poured himself another glass of wine, refilled Blair's glass at the same time.  
   "You'll see it on the news. I don't know if I want to spoil it for you."  
   "Go ahead. I may have to get to work as soon as we get home anyhow." [On what], Jim thought, then filed it away for later.  
   "Well...picture an armed robbery in progress, this cop car with a big smiling face on it parked out front, and Anderson inside using the loudspeaker to say..."He switched to a passable imitation of Goofy, "Come out with your hands up." Blair let his fork fall onto his plate.  
   "I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Children follow that thing around."  
   "I know. It looks pretty bad."  
   "And the media has this?"  
   "Yeah." Jim took a swallow of wine. "Typical. Where are they when we do something right?" Blair grinned.  
   "You should not have dumped that reporter so harshly. I'm starting to think she's made it a personal crusade-"  
   "I was not harsh," Jim said, "just...definite. And talking it out on Cascade PD in general, that's petty."  
   "True," Blair conceded. That settled, he went back to his food. Jim watched him. Blair had his hair pulled back in one of those leather ties which Jim could never believe held all that hair. His full attention was on the penne primavera, and Jim had a feeling he was trying to pick out the cauliflower without being obvious about it. He looked slightly bookish, dangerously cute, and extremely young. No question about it-- this kid was not equipped to be hunting down psychos who thought they were vampires. Jim had a responsibility to say something.  
   "I couldn't help noticing," he began. Blair looked up immediately. Jim didn't care for the look on Blair's face, but he plowed on. "I couldn't help noticing those letters on your desk." The heart rate was fast...temperature up...small lines around the set mouth. Uh oh.  
   "Couldn't help..." Blair shook his head as if shaking off a fly. "Okay. Okay. I've encouraged you to accept your genetic inheritance. It's just my bad luck that you're hardwired to be nosy. So. You went through my correspondence *and*..." Jim didn't handle it well when Blair was this angry with him.  
   "What the hell is going through your head? Are you *trying* to get killed? I get the impression you write to that psycho *first*." Weirdly, Blair seemed to have calmed down. He even smiled.  
   "He's annoying, but he's not a psycho."  
   "He's a 'parapsychologist', right? Spends him time chasing ghosts, and showing people cards with stars and circles on them?"  
   "Zener card," Blair said, seemingly for lack of anything better coming to mind. "Yeah, essentially that's the deal, but that doesn't mean he's crazy."  
   "He is if he wants to mess with people who think they need to drink human blood."  
   "I see your point," Blair said, eyes wide. "Test subjects can be dangerous. Sometimes they slam you up against walls, and get you kidnapped, and..."  
  
[And some try to kill you. Time to change the subject.]  
  
   "Why are you even doing this? *Are* you doing this?"  
   "I was going to, yes."  
   "Why? You don't need to run around looking for sentinels. You've got one."  
   "I know, but having a larger sample..."He stopped. "Look. Jim." He looked both tolerant and amused. Jim hated that look.  
   "What."  
   "I don't mean to be rude or anything, but this really isn't any of your business." Jim couldn't possibly have heard that right.  
   "I can't believe I have to remind you of this, but we're partners."  
   "At the station, yeah. I mean, our arrangement right from the beginning was that you act as a test subject for me, and I would help with the senses. As it turned out, that meant becoming your partner. There's a lot more going on with us now than there was then, but the fact remains that whatever other research I need to conduct doesn't concern you. I can't believe *I* to remind *you*of this, but you are not an anthropologist. I am doing my actual job, for which I am trained and competent." Jim was sure they made an interesting picture, sitting at that table. Portrait of two people who are not going to discuss what happened the last time Blair did other research. Still life with avoidance.  
   "You know I like an ordered life," Jim said, sailing as near the wind as he could brook. "Things are arranged pretty well right now. I don't welcome any disruptions."  
   "I don't think this is going to be a problem..."  
   "You don't think *anything* is going to be a problem," Jim snapped. "You don't think."  
   "This is not a police matter. I don't have to defer to your better judgment. I know what I'm doing. Does that bother you?"  
   "It wouldn't if I believed it!"People were starting to stare. Jim lowered his voice. "Not as a cop. As a friend. As your Blessed Protector. This sounds dangerous to me. I don't like it. And I'll tell you something else-- you are not dragging me into this. I am not going to Canada to watch over you, because you are not going to Canada." Oh, Jesus, that was no way to handle this. He wouldn't be surprised to find that Blair was telekinetically packing his bags from where he sat.  
   "I'm an adult, Jim. I don't need permission. I *am* going to Edmonton and I'm going to do my job. I'm not dragging you into anything. I wasn't even going to tell--"  
   "No, of course not. You knew I wouldn't like it." Blair leaned back in his chair. He looked tired, suddenly.  
   "Yeah. I guess I did. But that doesn't mean you're right."He actually smiled, which Jim considered pretty gracious. Then again, Blair could afford to be gracious. No matter what Jim said, Blair was going to have his way. "Jim, I have been all over the world. I lived on my own for years before we met. I know how you are, and I'm sorry to be stressing you, but I will honestly be *fine*. I'll be gone for, like, three days, and then I'll come home. I promise."  
  
[You can't promise that.]  
  
   Jim shut his eyes.  
   "Tell me as soon as you know when you're going. I have to book those days off, and get tickets..."  
   "Did I say you were invited?" Jim opened his eyes and saw Blair smiling at him. Teasing. He took a deep breath.  
   "Sandburg, if you left those letters out on purpose, I had better not find out. Ever." Blair raised an eyebrow.  
   "I didn't." Jim didn't have the heart to check.  
   "Come on, Chief. I'll take you home."  
  
 _*****  
There are plenty of annoying tests you have to take after college, and you might as well start cheating on them. No talking; pencils down; this may go on your permanent record. Please begin.  
   - William Poundstone, Big Secrets  
***** _  
  
   Jim usually maintained that he avoided the University because academics annoyed him, which wasn't true. Well, it *was* partially true, but it wasn't the reason he dodged Blair's colleagues so fastidiously. He wasn't about to admit the real reason to anyone. Tom "Aren't I Clever" Maranchuk turned out to be bearable, just. He was a little less pretentious in person. He had Blair's quality of perpetual energy, and the same tendency to become lost in an idea, as if he'd fallen in love with a thought. Blair had told Tom that he was bringing along a former test subject who had enhanced hearing, to help in tracking down the "vampire."It was just close enough to the truth that they hoped it would prevent Tom from pegging Jim as the full sentinel Blair had been looking for. When they met face to face, Tom barely waited for the introductions to be made before putting one square hand on Jim's arm and earnestly inquiring as to the cause of Jim's heightened sense.  
   "Runs in his family," Blair had said before Jim could answer. "Genetic abnormality."  
   "Which chromosome?"Tom shot back. Blair fixed him with a weary gaze.  
   "Yeah, any geneticist will tell you that it's *impossible* to see inheritance at work without a microscope. Gregor Mendel, everything he did was pure *chance*."  
   "Well, in that case, maybe psychic ability runs in families," Tom said. "I have case studies -- do you mind if I run some tests on him?"  
   "Why don't you ask *him*? He's standing right here." Although Jim was in no humour to answer anything Tom asked him, he could've kissed Blair for reminding the guy that Jim was a person. Before Tom could speak, he said, "I didn't come here to do tests. I came here to do Blair a favour. He thinks my hearing could help you find this guy, great. I owe Blair a few favours. You, I just met. I don't owe you anything." A cloud passed over Tom Maranchuk's round face for the briefest moment. Then,  
   "One run of Zener cards, and I'll owe *you* a favour. Fifteen minutes of your time. Not even. And painless." Jim turned to Blair for a steer. Blair shrugged.  
   "Fifteen minutes and painless. Unless you, like, guess *all* of them and he decides to make a career out of you."  
  
[So don't read the reflection of the cards on his eyes. Don't try to see the impression of ink on the back of the card. Don't get cute.]  
  
   Jim felt the corner of his mouth curve upwards.  
  
[Message received, Chief.]  
  
   Halfway through the cards, Jim hadn't guessed a single one right. It was easy to see the cards in the empty pop bottle over Tom's shoulder. Jim was pretty proud of himself ... until a whisper reached him from across the room.  
   "Law of averages, big guy." Without glancing up from the cards, Tom pointed at the door.  
   "Leave the room, Sandburg." Blair stayed. Tom set the cards down.  
   "I don't know what you did, but he just tensed. I'm starting this run again, with you elsewhere." Blair sighed dramatically.  
   "As if I would interfere in legitimate research. I'm wounded, man ..." He grinned at Jim and left the room. Jim hurried through the test without cheating, his concentration on Blair's heartbeat. Steady, relaxed, only a few rooms away. Good. Tom set the cards down and looked Jim in the eye.  
   "You knew them the first time. A complete wash-out is not likely to be due to chance. I don't think you were paying attention this time through. Jesus, Mr. Ellison, my field is difficult enough without genuinely talented people hiding their abilities. And I know Sandburg knows. This is unfair."  
   "Again, Professor," Jim answered, "I didn't come here for you. And I don't care what you think could or could not be due to chance. I can not read your mind, and I'm not clair-whatsis--"  
   "--voyant."  
   "I'm not clairvoyant either. I am a completely normal guy with freakish hearing and a strange friend."  
   "But why is your hearing ... oh, never mind. Bigger fish to fry." He stood. "Your strange friend is probably in the lounge." And he was, holding the attention of a roomful of people who looked unnervingly smart. Blair didn't seem unnerved.  
   "What the hell were you doing sneaking into a mental hospital, anyway?" The question came from a pretty redhead who was sitting quite close to Blair. Jim wondered who had sat down first.  
   "I was helping someone with a project," Blair said easily. "I can't really say anything about it." Damn straight he couldn't, since the "project" was one of Jim's cases, and Blair didn't go undercover, because he was not a cop.  
   "Anyway," Blair went on, "I told them I heard voices." The people around him nodded.  
   "That's the best and fastest way to get committed," someone said, and everyone laughed. Jim stayed to the back of the room, feeling awkward and two sizes too large.  
   "But then they wanted to run some tests ..." Jim kept his face still, with effort. He didn't know about any tests. Once again, Sandburg had neglected to tell him the whole story.  
   "I mean, the D.A.P. was simple; I just made it disjointed. And I went for paranoid on the MMPI. But then they pulled out the Rorschach ..." Rorschach. That was the inkblot test. Jim had taken it at one point, when he came back from Peru. He'd thought it was stupid, but it obviously meant something to these people.  
   "So," the redhead urged, "what did you do?"  
   "Well, I cried when they showed me the second plate ... I tried to hit someone over the fifth ... and when they showed me the seventh plate, I said it looked like a lamp." Silence. To that point, they'd been laughing, but that last line seemed to steal their words.  
   "How ..." Tom said. "I mean, are you ..." Blair laughed.  
   "No. I've seen a cheat sheet." Jim wanted to stay out of this, but it was driving him nuts.  
   "How do you cheat on an inkblot test?" Someone moved to shut the lounge door, and they were all looking at Blair as if they thought they might have to kill him. Jim was, unreasonably, nervous ... but Blair seemed fine. He waved a hand at a blond man with wire-rimmed glasses.  
   "You explain it. I'm not a psych major."  
   "God, no. You have no sense of ..." Frustrated, the blond turned to Jim. "The Rorschach has ten blots. Always the same ten, and always in the same order. Have you ever taken it?" Jim hesitated, then nodded.  
   "Okay, then I can tell you ... but don't *ever* tell *anyone* this."  
   "You want me to sign something in blood?" Jim asked. No one laughed.  
   "I'm serious. This is a secret. I don't even want to know how he got his hands on a cheat sheet."  
   "No," Blair said, just loud enough for Jim to hear. "He doesn't." "There *are* right and wrong answers. There are things nearly everyone sees. There's deliberate sexual imagery, at least one per blot, and you're watched for how you respond." Jim thought back to the test. It was a blur now, had pretty much been a blur at the time. He just couldn't remember, and he was glad for it.  
   "Plate number seven ... and this is *really* specialized knowledge ... it's supposed to look like two women facing each other. The key is in how you describe them."  
   "And Blair said he saw a lamp. Big deal." The redhead laughed.  
   "Oh, it's a big enough deal. You can see the lamp, plainly, if it's pointed out to you. But almost all of the people who see it spontaneously are schizophrenics. It's practically diagnostic."She turned to Blair. "You didn't need to put on a big show about the other cards. That one sealed it." Blair nodded. His eyes were very bright.  
   "I know. But I enjoyed it." There was no mistaking the admiration in the way she looked at Blair.  
   "My god, you are a shit-disturber." Jim had never had much faith in psychology, but he had to admit that was a pretty astute assessment from someone who hadn't known Blair very long.  
   "So," she said, leaning forward, "what did you say about plate number three?" Blair shrugged.  
   "I said they looked like chickens," he told her, and brought the house down. Jim was uncomfortable in the too-warm room, surrounded by smart people laughing at a joke he didn't understand. He felt oddly miserable, looking at Blair with these aliens. Blair understood them. He kept up with them, even in a field that wasn't his own. He caught their attention, knocked them on their asses, and made them laugh. Jim knew he wasn't stupid, and he didn't think Blair thought he was, but he was out of his depth here ... and he didn't enjoy the thought that, in his private conversations with Blair, the kid might be stooping to accommodate him. Suddenly homesick, he tried to catch the scent of the loft ... which these days consisted largely of Blair's herbal teas and chamomile shampoo. He found those scents, easy, and took a deep breath. Much better. Such a strange mix, Blair's witch doctor potions and Jim's cop trappings ... he could smell gun powder and oil as the gathering began to drift from the room.  
  
[Wait just a goddamned minute ...]  
  
   He hadn't brought a gun. He and Blair had agreed that it would be too much trouble at the airport, and Canada could be strict about guns. So why could he smell a gun so clearly? Jim's first impulse was to get between Blair and these strangers, as quickly as possible, and push Blair down behind the furniture in case shooting started. He stepped on that impulse and considered. Being without a gun himself, he wouldn't be able to do much in a firefight. This small room didn't offer much cover, and there was no back door. Just because someone was carrying a gun didn't mean they planned on using it anytime soon, so there was probably no sense in startling them. The thing to do was keep still and concentrate on tracking the smell, but Jim put that off until he'd made his way to Blair's side. Just in case. Blair looked at him, head tilted in inquiry.  
   "Something wrong?" he asked, more mouthing the words than speaking them. Jim almost smiled.  
   "With our track record?" Blair laughed, startling Tom, who turned to look at them. Jim tried to catch the scent of the gun, and decided Tom was in the clear.  
   "You're as weird as your reputation suggests, professor. What is going on with you?" Jim answered for him, keeping in mind that hearing was the only heightened sense he was supposed to have.  
   "I though I hear the hammer pull back on a gun." Blair shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Jim had seen that gesture about a million times, and it never preceded anything good.  
   "Here?" he said, practically whining. "Nooooo...." Jim laughed, couldn't help it.  
   "It's not anything *I* did, Chief." Tom leaned back against a vending machine.  
   "Are you people in trouble?" They answered together.  
   "Usually," Jim said.  
   "Habitually," Blair said. Tom slid a loonie into the vending machine, without turning, and slammed his fist against one of the tabs. When a can of Coke dropped, he slid down and grabbed it, eyes fixed on Blair and Jim.  
   "That's just great," he said, glaring. Jim rolled his eyes.  
   "You hunt down psychos who think they're vampires, and you're worried about us bringing you trouble?" He turned to Blair, placing a hand on his chest for emphasis.  
   "You. Stay. Here." Blair looked amused.  
   "No problem." Everyone else had left the room. Jim stood in the hallway, eyes shut, concentrating...but it was gone.  
   "It's no good," he called. Blair stepped into the hall, Tom on his heels.  
   "Could be nothing, Jim. Could've been a security guard."  
   "I know how you people are down in the OK Corral," Tom said, "but in this country, security guards don't tend to carry guns. There must be a real cop around here somewhere."  
   "Yeah," Jim said, not meaning it.  
   "So,"  
  
 _*****  
"To be clear, vampires are not real."  
   -Mark Rein-Hagen et al, Vampire: The Masquerade  
*****_  
  
   "I'm in the Larp," the contact told them. He had scruffy black hair, direct brown eyes, and an air of good-natured forbearance when speaking to Tom. Against expectation, Jim liked him.  
   "The what?"Blair asked.  
   "Larp. Live-action role playing. Let go of the mazes and monsters bullshit--I can see that on *your* face." Jim couldn't deny that, but he did like the kid, and he wasn't here as a cop.  
   "Okay, what *is* this Larp?" He sighed and grabbed a bag of Oreos from beside the couch.  
   "Kind of an improv acting deal, with some basic rules." He threw an Oreo into his mouth, downed it and tossed the bag to Tom. "Our genre is horror. I play a vampire in the game, but, see, I don't think I *am* one. Crazy fucking people are not *allowed* in this game. I just want to be clear on that, lest you start rousting my friends." Blair grinned. It was easy to see he liked the kid too.  
   "Understood. I take it the vampire isn't one of your friends?"  
   "Did I say vampire? I did not. I told Tom that I had seen someone who claimed to be a vampire, and who *seemed* to hear stuff pretty clearly from across the room. I only met him the one time, but he made an impression." Blair sat down next to the kid, his attention complete and encouraging.  
   "Mind telling that story again?"  
   "Not much to tell. We thought it would be entertaining to game at this sort of underground goth club, 'cause we had a line on where it was gonna be."  
   "Think it's still there?"Blair asked.  
   "Nope. As usual, they had to bug out after about a week. But I can always find it. Anyway, there was a group of crazy fucking people there claiming to be actual vampires. I'm not closed-minded. I believe in extreme possibilities. But I don't see why a real vampire would have a Cheetos wrapper sticking out of their coat pocket. And they would not let up. I mean, there's a time to drop the charade, you know? There is a time to fucking *wink*. Really annoying people."He stopped, drained half a can of Jolt, and went on. "So there we are in one corner of the room, discussing these other people, when one of them strolls over, and puts his hand on my arm. And he was *cold*. I used to put bags of ice in my coat pockets when I went to Larps so that I'd have cold hands, but they never felt like *that*. He looked me in the eye, which was unsettling, and he repeated most of what we'd said about him, which I would not have thought he could possibly have heard. And then he said..."he leaned in close to Blair, meeting his eyes for emphasis. "In future, would you please try to keep it down?" Tom swatted Blair's shoulder. "You see? Definitely something there." Blair nodded, his eyes still on the kid.  
   "Worth following up. Have you been back to the club since?" The contact laughed.  
   "Do I look like a crazy fucking person to you? I'm telling you, most of these people were just assholes, but that one guy was...something else. I'll get you an address, but after that, you sorry bastards are on your own."  
  
 _*****  
"I can accept the theory of relativity as little as I can accept the existence of atoms and other such dogmas."  
   -Ernst Mach, (1838-1916), professor of physics at the University ofVienna (as quoted in Stephen Pile's Incomplete Book of Failures)  
*****_  
  
   "Seeing as this is an underground club," Blair said in his most rational tone, "maybe you should listen from outside." If Blair was going to pretend to be rational, two could play at that game. Jim swiped a spring roll from Blair's plate.  
   "Why is that, Chief?" Tom looked at Blair.  
   "Why does he call you Chief?" Forced to choose between two questions he didn't much care for, Blair looked from one to the other and apparently opted for answering the larger man.  
   "You'd clear the place."  
   "Oh come on. I do not--" Blair held up a hand.  
   "Tom? What do you think Jim does for a living?" Tom shrugged.  
   "Private detective? Fed? Some kind of cop." Blair speared the spring roll with a chopstick and pulled it off Jim's fork.  
   "The defense rests."  
   "I don't know if it's safe for me to wait outside," Jim said,"I hear vampires can move pretty fast."  
   "He's not serious." Blair leaned back in his chair, watching Jim.  
   "Hard call. I can't always tell."  
   "What if I *was* serious? You," he said, pointing his fork at Tom,"are a parapsychologist. That means you study weird shit, right?"  
   "Yeah. I'm hoping they put that on my diploma when I get my Ph.D." Jim ignored the sarcasm. He was used to that particular brand of snarkiness.  
   "Yet you are trying to tell me that you don't believe in vampires." Tom laughed. It made him look eight years old.  
   "Only because they aren't real. I study human potential. Extra-sensory perception. Prescience. There are some flakes in my field, granted--"  
   Blair, who was in the middle of swallowing water, coughed violently. Jim patted his back.  
   "S'all right," Blair said quickly. "Wrong pipe. Tom, you were saying?"  
   "I was saying that I am a serious scientist. I don't go off hunting things that go bump in the night." Jim gave up on him, turned to Blair.  
   "What about you? You study folklore. I know you believe some of it."  
   "Well, yeah, sure...but vampires? The thing about most folklore is, you can't take it at face value. It does mean something, just not what it sounds like. For example, vampire stories tend to crop up in any society experiencing sexual repression. They were in vogue in Victorian England, and they had a resurgence not long ago, coincident with AIDS. Vampire stories aren't about actual blood-sucking monsters, they're about the vilification of, and consequent fascination with, desire."  
   "Are you telling me this is some depraved sexual free-for-all you'll be attending tonight?"Jim was trying not to smile. Blair grinned at him.  
   "Yeah, I figure it'll be a Bosch painting come to life."  
   "And you think you don't need me there?"  
   "Listening from outside would be fine," Tom said. Blair ignored him, laid a hand on Jim's arm.  
   "As long as you dress the way I tell you and try not to look too authoritarian, it should be okay."  
   "Sandburg..." Jim warned.  
   "Yeah?"  
   "You don't want me to catch you enjoying this too much."  
  
 _*****  
Dress in black and top it off with a long, sweeping, black cloak if you think you can get away with it.  
   -Owens and Rae, Bluff Your Way in the Occult  
*****_  
  
   In the end, Blair didn't change Jim's look all that much.  
   "It's too much to hope that we don't stand out," he explained. "I just don't want you to scream `cop'. What did you do when you worked vice?"  
   "Moustache. Bandanna." Blair seemed to be concentrating intently on something. Jim suspected that something was a desperate attempt not to laugh.  
   "That ... uh ... that's not the look we want tonight. Just wear black, a long coat ... you'd look goofy in make-up, so we won't go down that road."  
   "All men look goofy in makeup, Sandburg." Blair shrugged.  
   "Maybe. But it's probably my best shot at fitting in." They were at Tom's place, a three-storey character house which looked pretty good for thehome of four men in their twenties. Tom was scrounging for appropriate clothes, voicing relief that one of his roommates was close to Jim's size.  
   "You are just a little too comfortable with this, Chief."  
   "I dated a girl who liked the whole goth thing. Eventually she dumped me for making her happy." Tom walked in with an armload of clothes. Blair picked up something that looked like a black pencil crayon.  
   "Okay, Jim, why don't you go somewhere and change?"  
   "Maybe I want to see how practiced you really are with makeup."  
   "Maybe I'll spend the next half hour lecturing you on the importance of skin painting in tribal societies." Jim knew when he was beat.  
   "I'll be in the other room."  
   Well, `goofy' wasn't the word for how Blair looked. He looked wildly strange, angular and maybe even dangerous. Jim found himself reaching for Blair's scent again, for something familiar. The next thing he knew, Blair's hand was on his arm.  
   "Not here, not now. I do *not* want to explain a zone-out to Professor X."  
   "You guys ready to go?" Tom, on the other hand, did look goofy in makeup. Jim kept his eyes on the parapsychologist most of the way to the club, because looking at Blair made him shiver and he didn't know why.  
  
 _*****  
Let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone.  
  -Leonard Cohen, Dance Me to the End of Love  
*****_  
  
   It was interesting, watching Blair move through the club. Normally Blair's strong suit was approachability. He was cheerful, warm ... attractive the way a park was attractive on a perfect summer day. Tonight, he had somehow turned off the sunlight ... and people still followed him helplessly, drawn to something else. Jim took a step back, tried to view Blair as a stranger, and was startled to discover that Blair's features were exotic. For the role he was playing tonight, he'd somehow called forth remarkable beauty.  
   [Jesus, Blair ... if you can do that, why don't you do it all the time?]  
   Well, why should he, if could just be himself and get most of the women he took a liking to? This other thing was probably too much like work. Jim sat down at a small table and shut his eyes.  
   [Be yourself, Blair. I have a strange feeling and I can't stand this place and the last thing I need is you being weird. Or not weird. Or whatever is weird for you.]  
   Jim concentrated on scent and hearing, trying to find anything abnormal. He picked out several controlled substances and astonishing amounts of hair dye, but nothing that said "vampire". As if he had any idea what a vampire smelled or sounded like. At least he knew it wasn't another Sentinel. That he had experience with. The chair beside him was pulled back, and Jim winced.  
   "Headache?"a sympathetic female voice asked.  
   "Uh ... yeah." Jim opened his eyes. Black hair, black fingernails, black lips ... he wondered what she'd do if he offered to buy her a bar of soap. Probably misunderstand.  
   "You're after something," she observed. "Very focused."  
   Jim was about to ask if she knew anyone with extraordinary hearing when she went on. "Passion can wear you down." Jim looked around the room. Blair and Tom were at opposite ends, asking questions. Vampire hunting. As Blair had pointed out, none of this was technically Jim's job. He relaxed a little.  
   "Passion?"  
   "Comes off you in waves. I can almost see it. And I understand."  
   "Right now," Jim told her, "my passion is for going home."  
   She didn't seem fazed by his flippancy. "Could be," she said seriously. "Passion can be for anything. I knew a man who had a passion for sleeping. My passion ... I'm not permitted to say."  
   Just for practice, Jim checked her vital signs. She seemed excited about something, though no pheromones were in play ... but otherwise, perfectly normal. "Blood?" he asked, curious about her response. She smiled, revealing fangs over her eyeteeth which might almost look real to anyone else's eyes.  
   "We were talking about you."  
   Jim was scanning the room now, sending his senses back and forth. His uneasy feeling increased. "No," he said. "We weren't." "We were talking about hunger. That's what passion is. Unmanageable hunger. You feed it, when you can, but it just keeps eating you." God, something about this room, something in this room was definitely wrong. Felt wrong. Where was Blair? In that corner, still. Still so strange ... but perfectly safe. It was safe to close his eyes  
  -- and reach out. Overheated air, moving over his skin in waves as people moved and spoke and breathed. The problem was here, in this. So many people and so much heat. These many people and this much heat.  
   [Not enough.]  
   Jim sat straighter, his eyes still shut. Not enough. What did that mean?  
   [How many people? How much heat?]  
   Not enough? His sense of touch was desperate now, looking for the coldness in the crowd. He might zone-out, was dangerously near it, but Blair was here. He wasn't afraid. And he was cold, suddenly, so damned cold he thought he'd never stop shaking.  
   [Found him. Found him.]  
   A hand was fire on his arm. A voice was thunder in his ear. "Feed the beast." Without thought, he swatted her away. His eyes opened, found a door closing on cold night air. Blair wasn't in the corner anymore. "Goddamn it!" There was nothing of consequence between him and that door. Nothing to slow him down. In the alleyway, not ten feet from the door, Blair was in the cold thing's arms, head thrown back as white points worried the red pool on his neck. His eyes were half-shut, lashes beating like wings against his pale skin. Such a lover's pose, if not for the pool of red, and for a crazy moment Jim thought the girl's words were still echoing out here, making their last lazy bounce between dirty brick walls.  
   [Passion ...]  
   Jim threw himself forward, without considering what would happen next. He was going to take Blair away from that thing, somehow. He was unprepared for the strength that met him, or the speed. More than by the blow of hitting the alley wall, he was unmanned by the casual way in which he had been thrown. Blair moaned softly. The scent of arousal was everywhere, much too sweet. His back arched to drive him forward. His heart was speeding blood to the monster's throat. Jim forced himself to stand, gripping the wall. He took a step forward ... And the monster screamed. It crumbled, fell away before Jim's eyes, `til Blair lay on the ground surrounded by a powder, fine as talc. Beyond him, toward the street, a heart was beating with the slowness of sleep. Jim looked up into perfectly clear green eyes. A man of about Blair's age was watching them both. He was china- pretty and small, but something about him made Jim want to cut and run. "Waste of my time, what I've done," he said with a voice unpracticed in speech, "Didn't do this for you to let him die." Jim moved to Blair. A crowd was spilling into the alley as Jim lifted Blair to rest against his shoulder. "Chief?" No answer. He hadn't expected one. "You. Green hair, black dress. Yes, you. Call an ambulance."She didn't move. God, civilians were terrible in emergencies. "Do it now!" She went. Jim returned his attention to Blair. In spite of his weak heartbeat, he was tense, trembling. Jim realized with a shock that Blair was still caught in that thing's spell. He pulled Blair desperately close and ran a hand down his hair. Blair moved against him once, violently, and was still. Jim brushed his lips against the top of Blair's head. "There. Now rest." What kind of creature could create such intense desire from the feel of life draining away? Jim was still thinking about that when the ambulance arrived.  
  
 _*****  
Whenever we experience death at close quarters, nature sends all these little messages down our body. They say "Death is all around, death is rampant. Make more babies, make more babies."Does that make you feel better?  
  -Fitz, To Say I Love You  
*****_  
  
   "You can't deny that I was right about the travel medical insurance. `What's going to happen on a three day trip?' you said. And I said, `Knowing you, Sandburg ...'" Jim stopped, realizing that Blair's eyes were open. "How're you feeling?" Blair opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. He turned away from Jim, cheeks a dark red against his too-white skin. Jim went to the bed. "That answers my next question  
  -- how much do you remember." "Not everything, actually," Blair said, his back still turned. "Nothing after he fell apart ... but that's enough."  
   [Yeah ... I can get behind that.]  
   Jim placed a hand on Blair's arm.  
   [This can be one more thing for us never to talk about.]  
   "Did you follow him to the alley?" "Yeah. But before you start yelling ..." Jim smiled. "Me? Yell?" "It wasn't exactly my idea. I *had* to follow him." He faced Jim, and Jim brushed hair from his cheek. "My god ... Jim ... there really are vampires." Jim nodded. "Apparently. Professor X is having a fit. His thesis is a mess ... and he's wondering if you're going to sue." "Just because we're American," Blair joked, light coming back into his eyes. "Ever lived in Canada?" Jim shook his head. "They have some pretty vicious ideas about  
  -- never mind. Not important. Vampires ... now *that* is a closed society. That would make one hell of a doctoral thesis."Before Jim could speak, Blair grinned at him. "For someone other than me." Jim pressed his arm. "You may want to think about why no one has ever covered the topic before." Blair laughed. Jim rolled his eyes. "I used to think your ability to bounce back was a good quality. Now I just wish you'd learn." The cheerfulness dropped from Blair's face as though he had let go of a mask. "I'll be giving this some thought," he told Jim. There were dozens of nightmares in his voice, months of being afraid of the dark. Jim looked away, and Blair touched his hand. "I'm learning." His tone was light, but Jim got the message. He took to his chair again, pulled it closer to the bed. "I explained to them," he told Blair, "about how visiting hours don't apply to me." "Did they see reason?" "Yeah. I'm gonna stay here until daybreak. Then I have to take care of something." "Uh ... I have to disagree with you there. All we have to do is thank Tom for an interesting evening and *go home*." He was smiling a little, but his eyes were wary. This had definitely put a scare into him. Jim had a feeling he was going to be scared enough himself, as soon as he was actually able to believe it. He intended to put that off for as long as possible. "There's just something I want to do. After the sun comes up. That's true about vampires, right? They can't go out in the day?" "Yeah ... you ask because I'm obviously an expert." Blair shook his head. "I'm trying to tell myself that guy was just some psycho who's seen the Lost Boys, like, eighty times. I mean, he could've put me in a trance in the bar, somehow, and had me follow him outside ... but he was so fast and so strong and once the teeth were in there really wasn't any way to pretend ..." He looked exhausted. Jim moved to sit on the side of the bed. "Jim ... what does it mean if there really are monsters?" Carefully, Jim pushed him back against the pillows. "Get some sleep." Half asleep, Blair latched on to Jim's hand. "Don' go anywhere," he mumbled. Jim leaned back, getting settled. "Not tonight."  
   Blair had one dream that night  
  -- not a nightmare. Jim woke to a sigh in his ear, the feel of soft curls brushing his neck. He looked down to find Blair curled against his side. He lowered Blair to the pillows and watched him dream. Blair's face had that weird beauty again, animated by passion. It was hard to reconcile this with the man who'd shared a bowl of popcorn with Jim just three days earlier, watching something called "Robot Monster" and giggling like a preschooler. Jim didn't like it. "Blair ...wake up." He tilted his head back, still dreaming. His throat was an offering. He was saying something, but Jim couldn't make out words. He didn't want to. "*Blair* ... wake up, Chief." From the look in Blair's eyes when he finally did open them, he knew what he'd been saying ... and he'd sussed why Jim's hands were on his arms. He looked embarrassed ... deeply unsettled ... and not at all happy. "Sorry," he said, keeping his eyes on Jim's with an obvious exercise of will. Jim ruffled his hair and shrugged. He couldn't think of a thing to say. "I don't understand  
  --" Blair stopped, tears making his voice unreliable. Jim sighed. "C'mon, Chief, don't do that ..." He tried to think of something, anything that he could say to comfort Blair. "Maybe you should try being objective." Blair stared at him. "*What?*" "You're a scientist. Maybe if you think like one, if you can make some sense of this ... pretend this is a case study, happening to someone else." Blair frowned, concentrating. "Well ... it's an involuntary reaction. People sometimes have an erotic reaction to the proximity of danger, but I  
  -- the, uh, subject doesn't really have a history of that." Jim snorted. "The subject stalled on his dissertation for years because he liked the roller coaster. He once made a date from an airlift stretcher, shortly after being shot." Charmingly, Blair blushed. "The subject is telling you, this is *different*." Jim put a hand on his face. "I know. I know it is. Go on." "Well, if you want to look at the vampire as an evolved creature ..."  
   [And you would ...]  
   "... an advanced predator whose prey is people, you have to think they have abilities which support that. Obviously they have an ability to mesmerize ... they may use that to create an artificial arousal which incapacitates the victim."  
   "Maybe they're like mosquitoes." Blair was alert, caught up in the problem. "How so?" "When a mosquito bites you, it injects an anaesthetic before it draws your blood. It's a kind of toxin, which is why you get the welt afterwards." "That," Blair said fondly, "is like you." Jim couldn't guess what that meant. "Huh?" Blair lay back and shut his eyes. "Describing desire as a toxin." "Oh." He closed his own eyes. "Well," he said sleepily, "has experience taught us anything different?" Blair didn't answer. Jim rested his head against Blair's shoulder and waited for sunrise.  
  
 _*****  
Gonna get me a little oblivion, baby. Try to keep myself away from me.  
  -Counting Crows, Perfect Blue Buildings  
*****_  
  
   Luckily, Blair was still asleep when Jim left, and therefore unable to put up an argument. Jim was tired, owly, and in no mood for pointless discussions. He stood in the alley, eyes closed, trying to pick up the scent of the strange man.  
   [Wonder what Blair thinks happened to the vampire. I wonder how he thinks it happened. I wonder what he'll do when it occurs to him to wonder about that.]  
   There it was ... skin oil, where he'd seen the man place his hand. And he could smell it farther up the street, on a newspaper box. Jim opened his eyes, but barely saw. That scent was the only vivid thing in the world. If a car pulled out when he began to walk, if the low hum of a certain engine was behind him all the way, Jim didn't know anything about that.  
   The scent grew stronger as Jim neared the university. On one street he found it nearly everywhere.  
   [You live here. Where?]  
   He knew the heartbeat and switched senses easily, sorting through hundreds of rhythms to find his quarry.  
   [You'd be proud of me, Sandburg, if I ever told you about this. Which I won't.]  
   When he finally heard it, it was unmistakable. It popped up, louder than any other sound, impossible not to hear. Ridiculously easy to follow. It became louder at a pace that exceeded Jim's footsteps, and he was unsurprised to look up and find the stranger coming his way. "This isn't important to you," he said before Jim could speak. "I'll decide what's important to me. How did you do that last night?" "Things fall apart."He spoke slowly, his tone uniform and mild. Jim wanted to shake him. "Things do not fall apart. Not like that." "They fly apart. They're desperate to get away from themselves." "What the hell *are* you?" The stranger cocked his head, like an animal. "An accelerant." Jim's head hurt. "What does that mean? How did you do that last night?" "How? I told you what everything wants." "Don't give me that mystical bullshit. How did you do it?" He leaned against a tree trunk and looked up at the leaves. Jim noticed the neighbourhood for the first time and realized he wasn't far from Tom's house. "I was born," the stranger was saying, "with green eyes ... and other things. You were born with blue eyes ... and you found me here. Tell me how. Explain it." Jim ignored that. He couldn't think of a decent response anyway, not one that didn't call for his gun. "You followed us to the club last night." "You were bright. Possibility glows." "Why did you save my friend?" The stranger smiled. "Possibility glows." He turned and started to walk away. Jim took a step to follow, but stopped himself. He couldn't force anything from this person ... and what use would he have for the things he would learn if he could? The stranger stopped a few paces away and faced Jim again. "Can't you see that nothing exists in one piece? Can't you hear the decay of sound? With your gift, you should know that separation is natural. It takes effort to hold anything together." Jim was rapidly losing patience. "What is your point?" The stranger took time to answer, so much that Jim nearly gave up and left. "The end of the world," he said finally, "happens when you don't try anymore." Jim supposed he could've watched the stranger walk back to his home, but he was pretty sure there was nothing he wanted in that house. And Blair was probably up by now. Jim turned and walked away.  
  
 _*****  
I thought, "How far can you coast on charm?" Pretty far, actually.  
  -Dave Foley, the Kids in the Hall  
*****_  
  
   "I do believe in psychic abilities," Blair was saying as Jim approached the room. "I've seen some amazing things. I'm just saying that sentinel abilities--"  
   "This sentinel business is malarkey and you know it," Tom replied. Jim stopped outside the door and listened. "Like hell it is. I--" "You built an academic career on something Burton probably more or less made up  
  -- and I'm not denying you're smart; you've pulled it off this far  
  -- but you've just taken the first subject with abilities that approach your description and you've declared him to be a sentinel. He's a sentinel because he fits your theory. Your theory is valid because here's this sentinel. I don't know if even *you* can make that fly." "I haven't found a sentinel yet." "Bullshit. You're way too close to that cop for no good reason." "That's none of your business." "The more defensive you get, Blair, the more you try to convince me that he's your date or something, the less I am going to buy it. Tell me something  
  -- do you have any idea why his senses work? Have you had him under a CAT scan? Have you had someone look at his DNA? I didn't think so. You've just indoctrinated him into this crazy religion of yours--" "Just because you can't find a clairaudient--" "I've found plenty." "I bet they're not consistent." "What does that have to do with anything?" "Unlike sentinels, psychics are never consistent. I suspect it's a defining quality. *There's* a new thesis topic for you." "Eat shit."  
   "That's clever. You planning on using that at your defence?" "You can say whatever you want about my research. I know it's important. You'd be very surprised to know who has--" A nurse moved past Jim into the room, stopping the argument in its tracks. Jim followed her. "You feeling better, Sandburg?" Blair was sitting on the bed, dressed, with his backpack beside him. Apparently Tom had brought it. Jim noticed his own duffel bag sitting by the night stand. "Yeah. They said I could go anytime." Jim offered a hand to Tom, who hesitated. "It's been an interesting trip." Tom laughed and shook hands. Blair jumped down from the bed and swung the pack onto his shoulder. "Vampires," he said to Tom. Tom nodded. "Who knew?"His smile stopped. "I'm sorry about this, Blair. If I had honestly thought--" Blair waved a hand. "It was educational. Don't worry about it."He gave Tom a wicked grin. "I'm not planning to sue." Before Tom could come up with a response, Jim put a hand on Blair's back. "Come on, Chief. I'll take you home."  
  
 _*****  
In my sweetest dreams, I would go out for a walk-- but I don't thinkI'm ready yet.  
  -The Eels, Not Ready Yet  
*****_  
  
   Jim's first impulse was to pick up the entire coffee table and just dump it in Sandburg's room. Let Blair figure it out. But Blair still looked a little  
   [haunted]  
   tired, and Jim didn't guess it would kill him to pick up after the kid this time. Most of the mess turned out to be essays. Jim blinked at the one on top of the pile. On the first few scattered pages, so much red ink he suspected he'd feel the weight when he lifted them. Then on the fifth page, the red ink stopped entirely, except for a note along one side in Blair's almost elegant professional hand.  
   [See me.]  
   A bit farther down was a second note, in the quick sketchy writing Jim knew from phone messages and grocery lists.  
   [Don't panic-- you're not in trouble.]  
   Jim almost laughed. Blair couldn't manage to be formal long enough to mark a paper. Oh well...it was Jim's understanding that Blair was a pretty tough marker and the kids still loved him, so he must be doing something right. "Looks to me like this person *should* be in trouble," he commented as he dropped the papers on Blair's already cluttered desk. Blair glanced up from a book. "I doubt it. She's a very good student. Something's wrong. I'm just going to remind her that Rainier has counseling services, offer to listen if she wants to tell me, and give her ten days to revise and resubmit. She should have asked for a damned extension. Everybody knows I'm fair about stuff like that." Jim shrugged. "Maybe she's scared to ask you."  
   Blair raised an eyebrow. His hair had nearly made good its escape from his ponytail holder, and his glasses had slid to the end of his nose. There was a faint red pattern on his cheek which matched the nap of his favourite throw blanket. "Scared. Of me. Riiight...." "I admit that's hard to believe."Jim was about to leave when he noticed the book on Blair's lap. "Jesus, Sandburg." "What?" Jim took the book from Blair's hands. "A History of Vampires in Balkan Folklore?" They'd been back from Edmonton for over two weeks and Blair hadn't shown any real signs of being marked by the experience, other than a tendency to be home by nightfall. Jim had, foolishly, assumed it was a dead issue...so to speak. Blair sighed. "You know I need to understand. It's how I deal with things." That was true. One week after Lash had nearly killed him, Jim had been astonished to find Blair reading a thick text on the motivations of serial killers. Eventually he'd realized that Blair might talk a good game about being in touch with emotions, but in practice the kid wanted to pretend that all of his problems were...hypothetical. "Okay," Jim said, sitting beside Blair on the bed. "Just as long as you aren't considering any field research." Blair gazed at him with mild annoyance. "Please."He grinned, suddenly. "Do I look like a crazy fucking person to you?" Jim laughed. "Yes. Always have" Still grinning, Blair reached over Jim to set his alarm clock. "Six a.m.? I thought your first class wasn't until ten."  
   "It isn't, but I have to post these grades." That seemed like a lot of needless trouble, and Jim said so. "Why not just go down to the campus tonight, post them, and sleep in tomorrow?" The body against his side tensed. Blair's temperature rose, and his pulse quickened. Jim braced himself for a lie. "I have some stuff I should take care of tomorrow anyway."  
   [Why are you lying to me, Blair?]  
   Jim looked at the book in his hands, and suddenly understood. It was dark outside. "Tell you what," he offered. "I have paperwork I left at the station. Come with me and help--" "You mean do it for you," Blair corrected. "If you insist. We can stop by your office, you can post the grades, and I will buy you dinner." Blair gaped at him. "Twice in as many months? Check my pulse  
  -- I think my heart may have stopped." He was relaxed again, calm. Jim relaxed against him. "Your heart stopping, that could be arranged. Or we could get that paperwork over with and go to dinner." "I'll get my coat." Jim watched him and felt nearly defeated enough to cry.  
   [As if my being there made anything better. As if there was anything I could do to protect you from him. You're too smart to trust me this much, Blair.]  
   He got to his feet and dropped the book into the trash can beside the bed. Sure, Blair would find it and retrieve it later...but the gesture was the important thing.  
   Accidents will happen--much more frequently with him. He's never been far from trouble; trouble is a trusted friend. It's like that old expression, "All roads lead to Rome."He comes from trouble, and he's always going home.  
  -John Gorka,Always Going Home  
   It was two nights later when Blair called from his office to say that he'd be a little late. "That student is coming in to see me about her essay. I could put it off 'til morning, but she's probably nervous. I don't want to stress her any worse than she already obviously is." Jim had asked if she was a *cute* student; Blair had laughed and asked if Jim was trying to get set up; Jim had been informed that Blair would be home by nine, and that had been the end of it. When Jim hung up the phone, he sat and thought for a minute So casual, that phone call, after two weeks of figuratively hiding under his bed. Jim simply did not understand Blair. Then again, he remembered when he was a child, how Stephen would claim there were monsters in his closer. He'd drag their father in to take a look...and once an adult had declared that the closet was monster- free, Stephen had been content. Jim had never bought it, personally. He's always figured his dad had just missed the monster somehow. On darker nights, he'd wondered if his father might not be in cahoots with the closet thing. But Jim was a suspicious person and Blair wasn't. It could be that having Jim escort him to his office at night had banished the monsters for Blair.  
   [I wish it were that easy, Sandburg.]  
   Jim felt uneasy now, apprehensive, and he idly wondered if Blair might have passed his skittishness along as he invariably did his colds and flus-- the day Blair felt better was the day Jim felt sick. "Witch doctor," Jim muttered, considering whether to tease Blair about this later. Jim had tried to relax in front of the TV, but he was restless. As the evening progressed it got worse, until he thought about going to the gym to work off his nervous energy. Too much trouble, he decided, and Blair would be home soon anyhow.  
   [Milk's gone off.]  
   That must have been a recent development, since Jim hadn't smelled anything when he opened the fridge to get dinner. He wandered into the kitchen to investigate and found that he'd moved the milk to the counter while reaching for the remains of last night's stroganoff, and had forgotten to put it back.  
   [Senile. I'm going senile.]  
   He poured out the milk, sealed the carton in two plastic bags, and poured dish soap down the drain to cover some of the smell. Then he called Blair's office, intending to ask that Blair pick up milk on his way home. With every ring, Jim's restlessness grew worse. It was al little after eight. Blair might be on his way home. He might be at the photocopier, or getting the junk food he claimed not to eat from the vending machine.  
   [You buying this, Ellison?]  
   Jim grabbed his truck keys and headed for the door.  
  
 _*****  
...at an exhumation in Croydon, Spilsburg arrived at the graveside dressed in his usual immaculate manner, and when the coffin was raised, he ran his nose along it, straightened up, and said, "Arsenic, gentlemen."  
  -Browne and Tullet, the Scalpel of Scotland Yard  
*****_  
  
   It was just possible for Jim to see the Volvo from Blair's office. He'd seen it already, as he approached Hargrove Hall at a dead run. "I leave you alone for ten minutes, Sandburg..." Jim was not impressed with himself. He was a trained detective. He looked for missing people all the time...was even uniquely equipped to do so. He should be able to get past his personal issues and deal with this situation in a professional manner. He should not be thinking about how he had known something was wrong and done nothing. He should not be going over and over the fact that Blair's car in the parking lot and absence from his office meant that Blair had not intended to go anywhere, because that was pretty basic deduction and didn't help find anyone. Most of all, he should not be wondering exactly what he had been doing while someone came in here and stole Blair away from him. He sat down in Blair's chair and noticed that it still held some body heat. Blair couldn't have been gone very long.  
   [Maybe while you were pouring out the milk.]  
   The last appointment in the book was someone named Sarah Naylor, and Blair had spilled mango dressing on this book sometime in the recent past, and Jim really needed to focus. Whoever had been here last had gone to some trouble to cover their tracks. Nilodor had been sprayed in here, so recently that the spray was still damp on the desk. Which meant that someone had figured on being tracked by a sentinel, and that could not be interpreted as good. He filtered it out, and came upon a perfume. Definitely left this evening. Doing pretty well so far, considering that Blair wasn't here to guide him through it.  
   [Might have been while you were dialing. Might have been that close.]  
   No signs of a struggle. That could mean that someone had drugged him. Could mean that someone had fed him a convincing line, and he had followed them.  
   [Could've been a vampire.]  
   Whoever it was, they hadn't left anything in the way of clues. Nothing but that perfume.  
   [Remember what Blair said about that thing, how it (seduced) hypnotized him? Would've been pretty easy to lead him out of here.]  
   Nice perfume, actually. Something like the stuff one of Jim's dates had worn a few weeks ago, although this didn't smell quite as...expensive.  
   [But that would mean a second vampire tracking us down...or that first one coming back to life.]  
   Sunflowers. That was the name of it. It didn't smell a thing like real sunflowers, which didn't smell of much until they started to rot.  
   [Maybe that vampire didn't really die. Maybe it was some kind of (magic) trick. The green-eyed man, he could've set the whole thing up.]  
   The smell of rotting sunflowers wasn't anything you'd want to wear as a perfume.  
   [He knew about your senses. Maybe he read your mind and found out where you lived. He could be a (witch doctor) psychic. What does he want?]  
   Jim shook his head to clear it, and the perfume hit him hard. He opened his eyes to find a woman in her early twenties standing in front of the desk. "I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I was looking for Professor Sandburg." "He's not here."She didn't look like a vampire...or any other kind of kidnapper.  
   [Can't rule that out. Doesn't take dancing with the supernatural for Blair to get in trouble.]  
   "Oh. I've seen you before." Jim scrubbed his face, trying to get alert. "Yeah," he admitted. "Probably. I'm his roommate. You are?" "Sarah Naylor. I'm one of his students." "You're Sarah Naylor."Well, that explained the perfume-- and left him with no clues. Jim gestured for her to sit.  
   "You had an appointment with Professor Sandburg this evening." "Yeah. I came back because I forgot--" "What time was your appointment?" "Quarter to eight. Where is he? Is something wrong?" It wouldn't help any to panic this girl. Jim forced himself to relax. "No, I'm just trying to figure out where he went. Did you see anyone in here after you left?" "Yeah--some Canadian guy went in as I was leaving." "Was he wearing a toque?" The girl's laugh was quick, and a little harsh, as though she was surprised to be amused. She did look as if something were bothering her. "No. No toque. He had a Canadian flag sticker on his backpack, and a baggage ticket." "You're observant."Jim was starting to see why Blair had tried to accommodate this student. She shrugged. "I'm going to start field studies next semester." "Okay. Here's some more practice for you. What did he look like?" "Are you a cop? Someone said--" Jim wanted to bark at her, instruct her to answer the damned question, but he'd seen Blair with students enough to know that he really would get better results with honey. "Right now I'm just a guy looking for my roommate. That's all. Did you get a good look at the Canadian?" "You don't sound like nothing's wrong." Jim noticed his hands running over the surface of Blair's desk, from one end to the other and back again. He told them to stop. "Ms. Naylor, I'm a cop. I have sort of a dark view of the world. I worry when people are late for appointments, even when it's your highly distractible prof. It drives Blair crazy. Would you be willing to humour me, and just tell me what this guy looked like?"  
   She smiled with obvious warmth. Jim didn't understand it, but he wasn't about to kick. "Sure. He was quite a bit taller than me, short dark hair-- almost as short as yours. Late twenties, probably. He had brown eyes and a leather jacket and jeans and dock shoes. Glasses, plastic rimmed. I think...I bet he wears contacts usually, because his jacket and backpack looked pricey, and his glasses looked cheap. Clean shaven. Well-built. Pretty average actually." Jim grabbed a pen from some weird piece of pottery and was surprised by the heft.  
   [Expensive. Who gave this to you?]  
   "If I can get your number, just in case we need to have a drawing made up..."The smile left Sarah Naylor's face, and Jim forced himself to relax. "Again, this is just to humour me." She looked uncertain, but she gave him her number. "Anything else?" Jim shook his head. She stood. "Your friend," she said gently, "is a very sweet guy." She didn't look happy, and Jim realized he hadn't fooled her at all. "He gave me an extension on this paper, and I--I really needed it. I have to resubmit in ten days. He's gonna be here, right?" Jim wished he were about anywhere else. "If there is a problem, it'll have my full attention." "I can see that. Okay." She took a deep breath, said "okay" one more time, and left. Directionless, unnerved and plagued by ridiculous thought about mythical creatures, Jim picked up the phone.  
  
 _*****  
The definition of an asshole is a guy who doesn't believe what he's seeing. And you can quote me.  
  -Richard Ginelli, Thinner  
*****_  
  
   "I'll grant you this is not like him," Simon offered. "God knows he has his faults, but I doubt he would leave this way, without telling you, after three years of experience."  
   "He wouldn't." Simon had come down to Blair's office after an argument so weak that Jim wondered why he'd even bothered. Now they faced each other across Blair's desk, Simon clearly itching for a cigar and restraining himself in deference to Blair's "no smoking in my office ever; I don't care *who* you are" rule.  
   "You've gone over the office?"  
   "Yes, sir."  
   "Any point in my sending forensics in?"  
   "I don't think so." Simon nodded.  
   "I imagine you went over things pretty closely. All right."He leaned forward. "You don't seem too surprised by this. What are you not telling me?"  
   "Someone sprayed Nilodor in here to cover their tracks."  
   "Jesus. You think somebody *knows* about you?"  
   "I think that's pretty obvious." Simon frowned.  
   "Could it be Brackett?" Jim hadn't even considered that.  
   "Could be ... maybe ... but he would want me to know it was him."  
   "Besides which, you have another theory in mind."  
   "I -- yeah, I do. But it wouldn't hurt to check the phone record for the past few days."  
   "I'll have that done. Now, talk." Jim talked. He opened the bag and spilled everything, from the gun at the U of A to the powderfied vampire to his talk with the green-eyed man. To his credit, Simon said nothing until Jim was through. Then he simply said,  
   "Are you sure about this?" Jim shut his eyes and bowed his head.  
   "I've spent the past two weeks trying to convince myself that it was some kind of hallucination or dream."  
   "And?" He met Simon's eyes.  
   "I can't do it. I know what happened was real. I fell like I've known all my life. We haven't talked about it, but I can tell Blair's the same way." Simon began to root through his coat pockets, produced a bottle of Tylenol.  
   "I swear I never used to get headaches like this." Under better circumstances, Jim would have enjoyed that performance. Once the pills were down, Simon gave Jim a look which was both accusatory and peevish.  
   "What do you want me to say, Jim?" Jim didn't know. He hadn't known, himself, how certain he was of what he happened in Edmonton. Not until he heard himself admitting it to Simon.  
   "I find it hard to believe," Simon went on. "It's goddamned crazy. Vampires? If I'd heard this story three years ago, I would've had you committed. If I'd heard it three months ago, I would've suggested that you take a vacation. Now, I  
  --" He stopped, giving them both a few moments to consider the events which had changed his point of view. They had never discussed this, and they weren't about to start. Simon got to his feet.  
   "I'm going to treat this as a missing person's case, with the suspicion of foul play. Major Crimes will investigate in a conventional manner. You are going to be off following a lead on your own, and officially I don't know anything more about it." Jim nodded.  
   "Thanks, Simon." Simon sighed.  
   "This kid is no end of trouble."  
   "He's basically worth it."  
   "I know," Simon stopped in the doorway. "Where are you going? back to Canada?"  
   "Yeah."Something was screaming at Jim, telling him to go to Edmonton...and at this point, instinct was about all he had.  
   "Keep me informed." There was no question but that Simon was distracted-- he was nearly to the front doors before he remembered to light up a cigar.  
  
 _*****  
I stand alone and watch the clock. I only wait for it to stop. The doors are shut and all the windows lock. The only sound is from the clock. I sit and wait alone in my room. (deliver us from evil)  
  -Yaz, In My Room  
***** _  
  
   Jim had waited for a morning flight, on the wild hope that Blair would come home during the night and make the trip unnecessary. There had been a time in the recent past when Jim had thought he wanted silence, but he'd learned his lesson. He did not need to have it driven into him again and again.  
   [Okay, Sandburg? Deal? You come home and stay home and don't do this anymore.]  
   But Blair didn't come home, so Jim sat with grainy eyes and prickly skin in a viciously silent loft until morning.  
  
 _*****  
You wouldn't be lying to me would you, Agent Scully?  
  -Skinner, Tooms  
*****_  
  
   "I'm sorry. I can tell you're upset, but I think you're barking up the wrong tree." [I think you're lying.] "I mean, even if something did get a line on him while he was here, how would it follow him to Cascade?"  
   [You knew where he was from.]  
   "You're a cop; he's involved in dangerous stuff all the time...don't you think it's a little far-fetched to assume his disappearance has anything to do with one bad experience in Edmonton? Why don't you look around there, and if--"  
   "I'm not in Cascade."  
   "You're...where are you calling from?"  
   [You sound nervous, Professor X.]  
   "The psychology grad students' lounge." Jim had gone to Tom Maranchuk's office because it seemed like a reasonable place to start, and when he found it locked he'd decided to call Tom's house. It wasn't until he heard the quickening of Tom's pulse and tension in his voice at the mention of Blair's disappearance that Jim had even considered the possibility that Tom might be involved.  
   "You-you came back to Edmonton?"  
   "Apparently."  
   "Okay, look...just stay there, and I'll come meet you."  
   "Right."Jim hung up and headed for Tom Maranchuk's house.  
  


* * *

[Concluded in part two](conspirare_a.html).

Link to text version of part two: <http://www.squidge.org/archive/cgi-bin/convert.cgi?filename=drama6/conspirare.html>


	2. Chapter 2

This story has been split into two parts for easier loading.

## Conspirare

by Rhipodon Society

Author's webpage: <http://www.geocities.com/soho/square/6381>

Author's notes and disclaimer can be found in part one. 

* * *

_*****  
It is one thing to want somebody out of your life-- it is anther thing to serve them a wake-up cup full of liquid drainer.   
  -Veronica, Heathers  
***** _   
  
   One of Tom's roommates was pulling up to the house as Jim arrived.   
   "Here to see Tom?" Jim was surprised to be recognized so quickly...but then again, he probably didn't look anything like the people who tended to visit this house. Once inside, he didn't waste time on conversation. He figured Tom was either packing or making a phone call, and Jim had just a few minutes to catch him before he fled for parts unknown. The lack of sound coming from Tom's room was discouraging, and Jim widened the range of his hearing to detect anyone running or driving away from this house. He was so focused on his hearing that he nearly tripped over the body.   
   "Son of a bitch." He knelt down beside the late Tom Maranchuk and felt for a pulse, but there wasn't much point in it. Not many people had drain cleaner shot into their veins and lived. The roommate discovered the body as Jim tracked a syringe to the far side of the bed. He panicked, and Jim ignored him. Was it 911 in Canada? Well, no harm in trying. When the operator answered, Jim quickly gave the necessary information. While he waited on the line, as instructed, he turned his attention to the student who was poking at Tom in some bizarre attempt at CPR.   
   "Buddy. Hey...you can give that up. He's been shot full of drain cleaner. You can smell it in that syringe over there." The words had no effect, and Jim didn't bother to repeat them. He was frustrated beyond measure. Something very bad was going on here, and Jim didn't doubt for a second that the person who'd done this knew where Blair was. Broad daylight. And even if that sleeping during the day business was bullshit, that still didn't explain why something that strong would bother to poison someone. Maybe this wasn't a vampire thing after all... but if that was the case, Jim had no idea what was going on. Compared to not knowing, his vampire theory was beginning to seem comforting.   
  
_*****  
I willfully withheld information vital to an ongoing investigation.   
  -Blair Sandburg, 3 Point Shot  
***** _   
  
   Jim gave the Edmonton police the whole story...more or less. He told them that he had accompanied Blair on an academic trip, but didn't say why. He told them that they had gone vampire hunting, but said that Blair was studying closed societies. He mentioned that Tom was a parapsychologist, but left out his interest in heightened senses. And when he told them about Blair's disappearance, he described the irresistible force which had driven him back to Edmonton as a "hunch". They asked a lot of questions about what happened at the club, and Jim answered fairly honestly. He'd seen something attack Blair, drinking his blood. That something had been awfully damned strong. Suddenly, it had crumbled to dust. Jim said that he had no idea how or why... and no, he hadn't been drinking.   
   "This," he told them, "is all in the incident report you people had me fill out at the hospital."   
   "Yeah," the cop who'd been questioning him said. "We plan to cross- reference. So, if you're investigating a kidnapping in this country--" Jim held up a hand   
   "He's a missing person, and I'm here as a private citizen."   
   "Not of this country."   
   "Yeah, that's understood. Can I go?" After taking Jim's hotel and cell phone numbers, the cop gestured for him to leave. Jim would've been happier about that if he could have thought of a single place to go.   
  
_*****  
Burn all the letters -- government's on the phone. Soldiers are coming to plunder, but there are some things they will never know.  
  -the Indigo Girls, Burn all the Letters  
***** _   
  
   He's been just a little late getting to Tom's office-- the Edmonton police arrived as he was entering the Psychology building, which left him with nothing to do but listen in from the lounge and think about how arriving a little late was becoming a specialty of his. It didn't take the police very long to figure out what a parapsychologist was, and most of what Jim could hear was a long string of jokes on that topic. If they found anything interesting, they didn't say. He was considering just walking in there and pretending to belong, when someone walked into the lounge.   
   "What are you doing here?"The question was surprised but not unfriendly. Jim didn't have to open his eyes to recognize the voice of Blair's red-headed friend.   
   "Eavesdropping," he said. Tom's office was just down the hall  
  -- he figured it was plausible enough. He opened his eyes and saw her cock her head.   
   "There are people in Tom's office. You can make out what they're saying?"   
   "I have good hearing." She grinned at him and sat down.   
   "No kidding. You one of his test subjects?" Jim considered his options and decide on something resembling the truth.   
   "I did one of those card tests for him, but I guess I'm not a psychic. Just some guy with good ears." She reached under the couch and pulled out a small coffee maker, plugged it in.   
   "The stuff in the vending machine is battery acid." Jim was surprised enough to laugh. She looked at him oddly and he waved a hand.   
   "Nothing. You just reminded me of someone."   
   "You were here with that anthropologist, the one who did the sentinel paper."   
   "Yeah." She scooted back into the couch cushions, and folded her legs beneath her.   
   "I read his master's thesis. Tom gave it to me." Was there anything sweeter than catching a witness before they found out the murder victim was dead?   
   "Did you work with Tom?"   
   "I used to, last year." There was a harshness to her tone, and her temperature was up just a bit.   
   "Did something happen?"   
   She shrugged.   
   "Nothing special. I was replaced." She was trying to behave as if she didn't care. Jim wasn't buying it.   
   "By who?"   
   "Grad student from the U of T. I guess he's okay, but the thing that really burns me is, his undergrad work was all in criminology. Explain to me how that qualifies him for parapsychology." Jim allowed as how that was a little strange.   
   "No kidding, it's strange. I would love to know how he's been working out, but Tom's gotten really closed mouthed. I mean last year I would've bet that someone would eventually cut his tongue out, just to shut him up. But since last semester began...does he think I'm going to steal his research? Cream, sugar?" Jim took a moment to switch gears.   
   "Uh, black. Thanks."He sipped coffee and had to admit it was pretty good. He raised his cup in salute, and the redhead smiled.   
   "It's one thing I do right."   
   "So, is it credible that someone might want to steal from Tom's research?" She almost choked on her coffee.   
   "Yeah, right-- because Tom's career is on fire." There were footsteps coming toward the lounge from Tom's office, and Jim took that as his cue to leave.   
   "I can't explain right now," he said, "but you may want to talk to me later." He wrote his hotel phone number on the back of his Cascade PD business card and handed it to her. "Thanks for the coffee." She hadn't followed him for more than five feet when Jim heard the Edmonton cop stop her. He might be confused... he might be uninformed... and he might be too incompetent to find his own partner... but if nothing else, his timing was getting better.   
  
_*****  
Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.   
  -Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle  
***** _   
  
   The call came just after five p.m.   
   "Ellison."   
   "You had dinner yet? He smiled, wondering if this insistence on always seeming casual was a trait shared by all grad students.   
   "No. You asking me out?"   
   "My roommate and I will be having dinner at the university Earl's, around six. Do you need directions?"   
   "In this city?" It hadn't taken long to discover that Edmonton's layout was illogical at best. On their way from the airport to the U, Blair had suggested that the city planners liked to work while dropping acid and watching Dark City. He'd also made pointed comments about someone named Sarah Winchester, but Jim didn't know who that was, and hadn't bothered to ask. The redhead laughed, calling him back to the present.   
   "Okay, get a pen." After a page and a half of instructions which included, "Ignore the one way sign at the bottom of 112th, because it's pointing the wrong way," Jim was ready to go.   
  
_*****  
I always enjoy finding out about people. It always relaxes me.   
  -Wallace Shawn, My Dinner With Andre  
***** _   
  
   "By the way, since it hasn't come up yet, I'm Laurie Mickoski."   
   Jim took the proffered hand while staring at the redhead's dinner companion.   
   "And," Laurie went on, noticing his stare, "this is my roommate, Kate."   
   "Oh, we've met," Jim informed her. Kate was grinning broadly, a surreal Cheshire Cat in black lipstick.   
   "He was at the club the other night. Hey, is your friend okay?"   
   "He's--" Jim started. Laurie cut him off.   
   "That's the guy who got stabbed?"   
   "Long curly hair, big blue eyes, absolutely fucking gorgeous?"   
   "Yeah, that's him! That's the anthropologist who was visiting Tom."   
   "Wild." They'd forgotten about Jim, which suited him fine. He hadn't decided yet what line he wanted to take with these women, and he preferred not to be asked any questions.   
   "I can't believe he got stabbed. Jesus. Poor guy. I bet he'll never come back to Edmonton."She turned to Jim. "Is he okay?"   
   "Yeah."If she thought Blair was dodging Edmonton, he was prepared to let that ride for now. "You," he said, turning to Kate, "put on quite a performance at that club."   
   "I hope so," she said cheerfully, reached for her margarita. "That's what I do."   
   "What?"   
   "I'm a performance artist. I'm working on a new show, kind of exploring the ways in which passion acts as a catalyst. If you--"   
   "Katie," Laurie said, "honey, not now." Kate shrugged and sipped her drink. Laurie was frowning at Jim.   
   "What were you doing at a goth club? Why would Tom take you there?" Jim didn't figure Tom had secrets worth keeping anymore...and even if he did, Jim wasn't inclined to keep them.   
   "We were looking for vampires."   
   "Oh, right," Kate said. "As if a real vampire would--"   
   "Because of the heightened senses thing? Like in the Anne Rice books?" Jim let distaste show on his face.   
   "I wouldn't know. But that *is* what he thought." The waiter dropped menus on their table and scurried away, clearly not liking the looks of this conversation. Jim didn't blame him.   
   "So Tom found some pseudo-vampire, and he wanted to make sure it wasn't a sentinel," Laurie said, opening her menu. "That makes some sense."She scanned the menu quickly, appeared to make up her mind, and set it down. "So," she said, looking Jim in the eye,   
   "explain to me why Tom is dead." She almost pulled it off, the unconcern. It was possible that only a sentinel would have noticed the way her hands were shaking. Jim sighed.   
   "I wish I could. Obviously he was involved in something dangerous, and I think we need to look at the criminologist."   
   "Uh-huh. I'm all for that." Kate set her menu down.   
   "Where is your friend, anyway?"   
   "Good question," Jim admitted. He told them the whole story, over dinner, and found that they could be silent when it suited them. He did not hesitate to correct Kate's belief that Blair had been stabbed.   
   "That's crazy," she countered, "It's just that you were in the vampire club, and that psycho was drinking your friend's blood, and-- "   
   "And when I tried to pull him off Blair, I was thrown against the side of the alley. He just backhanded me. He wasn't even trying very hard."   
   Kate considered that.   
   "The police haven't found him yet."   
   "They won't. He crumbled to dust just before everyone ran outside." Laurie shook her head.   
   "You sure you weren't on anything?" Jim glared at her.   
   "What do you think?"   
   "Okay, okay... but the thing is, that's impossible."   
   "If you have questions about it, you'll have to refer them to the green- eyed guy." Kate swallowed some of whatever she was eating. Jim couldn't identify it by sight, and didn't want to go for smell.   
   "What green-eyed guy?"   
   "Little guy with black hair and green eyes. He was standing at the end of the alley. He told me he was the one who killed the vampire, and I found him convincing." Kate's eyes were bright.   
   "Did he talk kind of funny? Sort of cryptic? And was he wearing one of those leather dusters?" Jim found himself wishing for Simon's Tylenol.   
   "Yes. Why?" Kate and Laurie exchanged looks.   
   "Sounds like Chancy," Laurie said. She didn't sound happy about it.   
   "Definitely. I wonder if the rumours--"   
   "Don't start."   
   "Hey!" They stopped and looked at Jim.   
   "Who the hell is 'Chancy'?"   
   "That's a nickname," Laurie said. "After Chance Harper, from Strange Luck." Jim gave her a blank look.   
   "It's a TV show. Never mind."   
   "Why do you call him that?"   
   "He has strange luck," Kate said. "Just... incredible timing. And he's a hell of a card player." Jim looked at the remains of his stir-fry. It hadn't been bad. Blair's stir-fries were better, but he didn't want to pursue that thought right now.   
   "How do you know this guy?"   
   "His boyfriend is in one of my classes," Kate said. "They were hanging around with me and Laurie one day and she gave them the Zener on a whim."   
   "Actually," Laurie corrected, "I only gave it to Chancy. Keiran left as soon as I brought the cards out. He has some *thing* about them."   
   "Weird."   
   "So," Jim said, trying for patience, "did he guess them all right?"   
   "Oh," Kate said, grinning again, "it was way stranger than that."   
   "No matter how many times I gave him the test," Laurie said, "and no matter how much I shuffled, the cards came up in order. All the stars, then all the circles, then all the squares..."   
   "So this guy definitely has something extra."   
   "Oh, yeah. Chancy's documented. But he's so strange, nobody will believe it. Tom ran a lot of tests on him, but none of the papers he wrote about it were published."   
   "Then this guy might know what Tom was involved in, right? If they worked together a lot?" Laurie looked uncertain.   
   "Well... I don't know. How much does a subject really know about the researcher?" It occurred to Jim that this girl might have hit upon his least favorite topic.   
   "I wouldn't mind talking to this guy," he said.   
   "What's his real name?"   
   "Joel-something," Kate said, glancing at Laurie.   
   "Yeah. I can't remember, but he lives with his boyfriend. I can show you where." As they left the restaurant, Jim thought to ask about the rumour Kate had mentioned earlier.   
   "Oh, it's really out there. Someone said that he was good at controlling cards 'cause he's really in touch with chaos. He talks about chaos all the time."   
   [I can corroborate that.]   
   "This guy said that he'd seen Chancy look at a glass of wine at a party one time and start talking about how the glass was crawling toward chaos, or something like that. Then he said something about how it was unbearable suspense sometimes... and then-- my friend swears this is true-- the glass just disintegrated. Just like you say the vampire did. Wine all over the table. Of course, my friend is the only one who saw it." Jim felt a kinship with Kate's unnamed friend.   
   "That doesn't mean," he told her, "that he was wrong."   
  
_*****  
Everything that I believe is wrong with you is wrong with me.   
  -The Indigo Girls, Hand Me Downs  
***** _   
  
   The two women nattered comfortably for most of the short trip, bickering over Laurie's driving and Kate's choice of radio station and who had left the kitchen window wide open during last night's rain. Jim couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so lonely. Okay, scratch that. Yes, he could. As he'd guessed, the house wasn't far from where he'd had his talk with Joel "Chancy" Whatshisname. It was so large that Jim thought it must be subdivided into apartments, but he only saw one buzzer at the front door. What were a couple of university students doing in a place like that? Kate answered his unspoken question as the got out of the car.   
   "I think Keiran inherited this place. They run it as a boarding house, but I'm pretty sure it's non-profit. Keiran must come from money or something." The door opened as they went up the walk, and a handsome but thin blond stepped onto the porch. His hair was cropped close, his shirt was pressed, and the wire rims on his glasses were practically invisible. Jim was willing to bet he folded his underwear.   
   "Hi, Keiran," Kate chirped.   
   "Hey, Katie. Uh... this is not a good time."   
   "This guy wants to talk to Joel." Keiran met Jim's eyes.   
   "What about?" Jim recognized the stance, the way this man was blocking the doorway, the way his shoulders were set. He was pretty sure he looked much the same way when Blair was standing behind him. There was no point in trying to intimidate someone who would rather die than back down.   
   "I need him," Jim said gently, "to help me find my friend." Keiran took his time sizing Jim up, and Jim let him. Finally, the blond shifted his gaze to Kate and Laurie.   
   "You guys should go home," he told them, "I'll see you tomorrow."   
   "But--" Laurie took Kate's arm and led her back to the car.   
   "C'mon. I'll buy us ice cream." Once the car had rounded the end of the block, Keiran stepped aside.   
   "Come in." As he entered the house, Jim heard people fleeing the main floor, crowding the stairs. He had a suspicion he wasn't going to   "Joel...do you know this guy?" Joel was on the couch, sitting cross-legged at one end. The dark, stylish clothes of the other night had been replaced by jeans and a t-shirt which featured a tentacled monster looming over Canada's parliment buildings and the caption "Cthulhu '97-- Why settle for the lesser evil?"   
   "Yes," Joel answered, looking at Jim. "Better than he knows." Keiran took a deep breath and waved Jim into the living room. Jim chose a chair across the coffee table from Joel and noticed that Keiran remained on his feet. [Fighting]   
   he thought, not knowing why.   
   [They're fighting.]   
   "Joel... Laurie tells me you were a test subject for Tom Maranchuk."   
   "Joel, you don't have to talk to him." Joel kept his eyes on Jim.   
   "Yes."   
   "Do you know specifically what he was working on?" Joel shifted in his seat.   
   "It wasn't his work."   
   "Joel." Joel looked at his friend, unnaturally calm.   
   "I want him to know." Keiran threw up his hands.   
   "I'll be in the kitchen." Jim waited `til he was gone, then leaned forward and asked,   
   "What do you mean it wasn't his work?"   
   "He did what the other one asked." Jim had had more productive talks with five year olds.   
   "What other one?" Joel turned his head.   
   "Keiran!"   
   "What?"   
   "Tell him." Keiran returned from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel.   
   "You know I don't think--"   
   "Tell him." Keiran sat on an arm of the couch.   
   "You could learn to say please."He faced Jim. "Okay, look ... Joel did some tests for Tom, and Tom wrote some papers which he said weren't for publication. I asked him why he was going to so much trouble if didn't intend to publish, because a paper is a lot of work compared to just taking notes." Jim nodded. He understood that.   
   "What did he say?"   
   "He said he had a convention coming up, but I thought ... I didn't believe him. I'm not sure why."   
   "The gun." Joel's soft voice was a shiver on Jim's skin.   
   "What gun?"   
   "Yeah," Keiran said. "That was later. Joel was alone in the office with Tom's research assistant, and the guy had to take a call in the lounge, which left Joel alone with his backpack. And neither of us really trusted this guy."   
   "Why's that?"   
   [And what's that smell?]   
   "I don't know. I guess he didn't act much like a parapsychologist ... or any kind of student, to be honest with you. He was just too ... straight." There was an obvious dig to be made, but Jim left it alone. He had other things   
   [You know that smell from somewhere.]   
   on his mind.   
   "So, what was in the backpack?"   "Well, a gun. And some very fancy looking cell phone, and a couple of things Joel didn't recognize ... and at the bottom, the guy's RCMP badge and ID."   
   "The criminologist was really a Mountie." Keiran laughed. It wasn't a happy sound.   
   "Think that if you want to, man."   
   "You think he wasn't a cop?"   
   "I think Tom was a parapsychologist. Did you know he's dead?"   
   "Yeah. I found the body." Keiran looked surprised.   
   "Really. Anyway, the RCMP doesn't care about psychics and the paranormal. But this country has a long history of ... have you ever heard of MK-ULTRA?" It had been a long time since Jim had had much to do with the CIA, but still he felt a strange urge to lie. Ridiculous.   
   "Yeah," he said. "That project is over. And it's hardly a secret anymore."   
   "No, it isn't. Most people even know that the CIA liked to conduct MK-ULTRA experiments on Canadian soil. The CBC did a mini- series on Ewen Cameron's hospital not too long ago."   
   "What has that got to do with the Mountie?" Keiran raised his eyebrow.   
   "I'll get there. I believe that MK-ULTRA never did shut down. It changed focus." Jim shook his head. He had little patience with conspiracy theorists, a fact which Blair seemed to find hilarious.   
   "MK-ULTRA is--"   
   "Save it. I've seen things you would not believe. I have good reason to think that our countries are actively working together to find, exploit, and eventually reproduce paranormal abilities. For now, they're tools in espionage... and don't ever think espionage is dead." Jim didn't. He said nothing.   
   "Ultimately, I think they want armies at their disposal. You have heightened senses, right? Joel, is this the guy you told me about?"   
   "Yes." Back in Covert Ops, Jim had known a guy who used to say, "When two people know something, it's not a secret anymore."And then he'd laugh, which raised the hair on the back of Jim's neck. He was dead now, suicide. Jim didn't know what secrets the guy had kept, but undoubtedly he'd taken them to his grave. Jim, on the other hand, felt like a goddamned open book.   
   [open dissertation, to be precise]   
   "So what if I have heightened senses?"   
   "What if a whole army had them? You can't miss the potential in that."   
   "Actually, I can. But this is a waste of time, because your pointless rambling--"   
   "My point," Keiran said, "is that when you meet a CSIS agent-- that's a Canadian spook, by the way--" Jim glared at him.   
   "I know that."   
   "When you meet a CSIS agent and ask him what he does for a living, nine times out of ten, he'll say he's with the RCMP."   
   "That's crazy. You have no reason to think he was a CSIS agent."   
   "Yes, I have. What do you make of the situation? You've got a dead parapsychologist, and something has happened to your friend. I assume this is the guy Joel saved from the vampire?" There was no point to keeping cards in his hand, not if he wanted to find out what had happened to Blair.   
   "Yeah. He disappeared from his office at Rainier University last night."   
   "Shortly after spending time with Tom Maranchuk. You don't see a pattern developing here?"   
   "Of course I do," Jim snapped. "That's why I'm talking to you."   
   "And I'm telling you, it's CSIS. I'm familiar with these people."   
   [That smell was in Blair's office.]   
   Jim shut his eyes.   
   [Nilodor.]   
   He stood, startling his hosts, and moved to the source of the smell. It wasn't hard to find. It was coming from a leather backpack, lying on the floor just inside the back entrance to the house. Jim stared at it, unable to take his eyes off the Canadian flag sticker on the back.   
   [Stop that, Ellison. Look at something else.]   
   He looked down at the dusty floor beneath the pack. Terrible housekeeping.   
   [Oh god...]   
   Unless...   
   [Oh Jesus...]   
   It really was an awful lot of dust.   
   [Oh, god.]   
   Keiran and Joel were standing beside the couch when Jim turned around, and he was glad he'd visited a washroom recently. Nothing more embarrassing than a tough, experienced detective soiling himself.   
   "He came for me," Joel said in that eerily mild tone. "The way he came for your friend."   
   Jim gawked at him, couldn't help it.   
   "You..."   
   "What would you do?" Keiran put in. "They steal people. They make people disappear."   
   "He killed that man!"   
   "Self-defense. That's what we'd say if you'd found a body in our house. But you didn't. You didn't find anything but a backpack and some powder, and maybe you could try to sell that to the Edmonton police, but don't you have better things to do?"   
   [Deal with this later. Find Blair.]   
   "Look, your friend here is a freak of nature..."   
   "You should know," Joel said softly, pre-empting Keiran's angry reply.   
   "Okay, so am I," Jim allowed, "but they didn't take me. They took Blair, and he is just an anthropologist."   
   [And shaman. Don't forget.]   
   "He defeated chaos," Joel said. Jim could swear he heard admiration.   
   "He got my senses in order, if that's what you mean," he said, "but otherwise he creates chaos. He's an official sponsor of chaos." Joel was smiling a little. Jim hated it.   
   "We all speed toward disintegration. There is a point where the balance between chaos and stasis is tipped, and it's impossible to hold together any longer. He passed that point and still he called his atoms home. He called his spirit from boundless space to one body. Do you understand?"   
   [He came back from the dead.]   
   Jim didn't speak. Didn't the whole world know he didn't want to talk about this?   
   "A will that strong commands magic." Jim began to move toward the back door. Nobody stopped him. As he opened the door, his eyes fell on the backpack again. If he was going to call the police, it was pretty important that he leave it there. Evidence. After a moment's hesitation, he took it with him.   
  
_*****  
I am standing at the water's edge in my dream. I cannot make a single sound as you scream. It can't be that cold; the groundis still warm to the touch. (We touch)This place is so quiet, sensing that storm.   
  -Peter Gabriel, Red Rain  
***** _   
  
   Hearing started to go as he made it back to his car. Sight had the decency to wait until he was in his hotel room. Jim sat down on the bed and shut his useless eyes. It stood to reason that his senses were going-- he'd been using them hard, and his partner was nowhere to be found. He carefully went through the process Blair had taught him, trying to calm down, relax, regain control. He was trying very hard not to think about anything complicated. On the floor between his feet, the weight of the backpack reminded him that he was holding on to evidence of a murder. Exactly who had been murdered, a criminology student or a Mountie or a spook in a toque, that he didn't know. He pushed the pack away.   
   [Relax. Deep breaths. You can do this]   
   It was over an hour later when Jim finally sensed light on his eyelids. He was about to open his eyes when he heard a panther growl.   
   [That's all I need right now.]   
   There was no point in delaying it. Jim opened his eyes, expecting the jungle. Instead, he found himself in a dark room with an odd reddish glow and walls that seemed able to swallow him. A soft noise behind him caught his attention   
   [Hearing's back]   
   and he turned to find Blair standing a few feet away. He looked dead on his feet, with red rimmed eyes, and a disturbing pallor. His sheepish "Oops, sorry dragged us into something again" smile was playing around the corners of his mouth, but he couldn't quite seem to pull it off. Jim went to him without hesitation, took Blair into his arms. This wasn't real, Jim knew that, but Blair was solid and reasonably warm against him. Blair wrapped his arms around Jim's neck and laid his head on Jim's shoulder. Jim held him tight, resting his cheek against Blair's curls and breathing in the scent of chamomile shampoo. That particular shampoo was one of the many things Blair claimed to employ in the pursuit of women, but Jim didn't believe it. He suspected Blair just liked the smell.   
   "Is this," a muffled voice said, "my vision or yours? I can never tell." Jim moved back enough to see Blair's face.   
   "Are you all right, Chief?" Blair managed a weak smile.   
   "More or less, yeah."   
   [Liar.]   
   "Where are you?"   
   "I don't know." That was the truth, but there was something guarded about Blair's manner, and Jim didn't like it.   
   "What can you tell me?" Blair shook his head, and Jim saw tears in his eyes.   
   "Chief..."   
   "I can't. I don't want to lead you here." Jim grabbed his arms as Blair tried to pull away.   
   "What the hell are you talking about? What's going on?" There was a change in the room, a sudden coldness of the sort that usually presaged hail. Blair tensed in his grasp.   
   "Blair?" He fell forward, shaking, until his forehead was against Jim's chest.   
   "Hurts..." he said, sounding like a terrified child. Jim put a hand on the back of his head and stroked his soft hair.   
   "Ssh..." Rain was falling inside the room. It was rain from a blistering summer day, the kind that fell in huge drops, and felt warm against bare skin. Jim saw the drops and thought at first that the red glow of the room was playing tricks on his eyes. Then he smelled the rain, and realized that it looked red because it was blood. Blair raised his head. Jim couldn't tell if the red streaks on his face were rain or tears. Every part of him ached.   
   "Blair, what is this? What does it mean?" Blair leaned in close. Before Jim could react, Blair had pressed a gentle kiss to his lips.   
   "I love you, Jim," he said, "Go home." When Jim woke the next morning, his senses were back in place. They were also perfectly, relentlessly normal, and refused to be anything else.   
_*****  
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.   
  -Hunter S. Thompson  
*****_   
  
  
   The RCMP badge was pressing uncomfortably into Jim's leg as he sat in Laurie's office. She was explaining that it really wasn't possible for her to let him into Tom's office. He let it wash over him. It meant nothing. The badge in his pocket was about the only thing of use he'd found in the backpack. Well, that and a 9mm, which was in his jacket pocket waiting for whatever might come up. He stood.   
   "Wha--" Laurie said. "Where the hell are you going?"   
   "To Tom's office. If you won't open it, fine. I can get it open."   
   "But the police will want to know why I didn't call them when I heard you breaking in."   
   "Maybe you were out for a walk. Or maybe I was holding a gun to your head. I don't care what you tell them." She looked Jim in the eye. He looked back, unconcerned. Whatever she decided, he'd get the information he needed.   
   "Okay. I like Blair. Come on." She opened the door and handed the keys to Jim.   
   "They expressly told me not to go in here myself, and certainly not to let you in. As far as I'm concerned, these keys have gone missing." She returned to her office, grabbed her coat, and left. Jim would've like to keep an ear out for trouble, but if he wanted to do a really effective job he was going to have to hire a sentinel, and he didn't know any. He resigned himself to taking his chances. He had barely noticed this office on the last trip. Now he saw the clutter, stacks of books and files tossed in with personal keepsakes and token displays of subversiveness. This was going to take awhile. Glancing around the room, he spotted a photograph of Tom Maranchuk and a small group of what looked to be fellow students. Closer examination revealed an unsmiling young man who matched the description Blair's student had given of the man who'd been in Blair's office. The strap of that leather backpack was visible on his shoulder. Directly below the photo was a dartboard with a picture of Uri Geller tacked to it. Jim stared at it for a moment, confused. What problem could a parapsychologist have with Uri Geller? The guy was psychic, right? He'd ask Blair about it later. It didn't take long to determine which desk belonged to the criminologist, and he concentrated on that. It was tidy, especially in comparison to Tom's, and Jim didn't find any evidence that this person actually conducted research. There were a few finished reports in the drawers, most bearing Tom's name. Jim had a feeling that he could find the ones about Joel if he looked, but he didn't want to spare the time. He turned the desk inside out and wound up with one piece of paper in his hands. It was a scrap, some kind of parking permit or gate pass. On the back was a stamp of the words, "Suffield, Alberta." It wasn't much, but it was the closet thing to a clue he could find, and he was prepared to go with it.  
  
 _*****  
If the U.S. government were an individual, no one would have anything to do with him.   
  -Jim Marrs, Alien Agenda  
*****_   
  
   "I've heard of Suffield. Now tell *me* something ... why do you ask?" The young man was outwardly relaxed, leaning against the checkout counter and chewing on a licorice pipe. Jim would've loved to know what his pulse was like. He gave the librarian an ugly stare.   
   "Should I call tourist information instead?"   
   "I don't think Travel Alberta likes to talk about Suffield."   
   "Why is that?" He was considering asking why Jim wanted to know again. Jim could see it.   
   "Why," he repeated, "is that?"   
   "It's kind of a military town."   
   "You mean a base?"   
   "No." The librarian nibbled nervously on his pipe. "I mean a testing ground for chemical and biological weapons."   
   "That's a significant violation of the Geneva Convention." The librarian looked disgusted.   
   "They say it's closed down. Actually, what they say is that they're in the process of safely disposing of various materials -- that includes anthrax spores and botulinous toxin and biological bombs They've been `in the process' since 1989." Jim smiled.   
   "Can I assume you don't believe them?" Let me put it this way -- in 1970, government officials told the United Nations that not only did we not *now* possess biological weapons, but we never *did*. That's an example of Ottawa's honesty on the topic."   
   "So, officially the place is a storage facility?"   
   "Right. They might do some other research there, or claim to. Its full name is Experimental Station Suffield. There may be some affiliation with the National Research Council."   
   "Is that civilian?"   
   "Officially. Make of that what you will. Also, Suffield has traditionally been a joint venture with Britain and the States, so either of them may be using it for something."   
  
[True-- but I don't think that something is what you think it is.]   
  
   "Okay. Thanks. Where is Suffield, by the way?"   
   "Little ways out of Medicine Hat." Jim didn't know where Medicine Hat was, but he could look that up.   
   "Thanks," he said again, turning to leave.   
   "Hey, buddy...."   
   "Yeah?"   
   "I wouldn't go out there."   
   "You think I'll mysteriously disappear?" The librarian shook his head, all traces of archness gone.   
   "I think they poured a lot of shit on that land over the years. They say it's safe...but they say a lot of things."   
   "Yeah," Jim agreed, "they do."   
  
["Agreed?" said the demon, holding out his hand.   
  -Gaiman and Pratchett, Good Omens]   
  
   "You're right," Keiran told him. "You do need help." Jim glared at him. God, he hated this.   
   "Yeah. Will you help me?"   
   "You mean me," Joel said. Which was true, but Jim didn't like to look at him.   
   "I don't know what I mean."   
   "You mean him," Keiran said, "and possibly some friends of ours. I'm not useful in dangerous situations." Jim wondered about that, but held his tongue.   
   "You know," Keiran said, "I take it, what they say goes on in Suffield?" Jim nodded. Keiran glanced at Joel.   
   "Biological weapons. Christ. Somebody thought they were being cute." Something of the kind had occurred to Jim. He didn't find it especially funny, and he doubted these people did either.   
   "So," he said, swallowing his distaste and looking Joel in the eye,   
   "one bio-weapon to another...will you help me?" Joel smiled. Every time Jim had seen it before, Joel's smile had been unpleasantly beatific. Now, it was just unpleasant.   
   "Only if we take that place to the ground."  
  
 _*****  
Oh baby, will you ride with me through the wheat towns to Medicine Hat? When the cold wind's blowing I'll be there. I'll hang on tight.   
  -Daniel Lanois, Silium's Hill  
*****_  
  
   "It's inconvenient that your super power has bailed on you," Keiran commented. Jim didn't grace that with a reply. One of Keiran's boarders had dredged up a map of Experimental Station Suffield from the internet, and two guys Jim knew only as Kreskin and Mandrake were bent over it, coming up with a battle plan.   
   "Is that a coincidence?" Jim looked up from the map.   
   "What?"   
   "Your senses leaving you. Is that a coincidence?" That was classified information. Jim didn't feel like talking about what Blair did.   
   "What else would it be?" Keiran blinked a few times, but said nothing.   
   "Okay," Kreskin said. "this shouldn't be too hard. I'll get us in, Mandrake will dazzle 'em with bullshit, sentinel guy here can find his friend while we look around and Joel can turn out the lights when we leave. Unless they're prepared to fight paranormals, in which case we're fucked, but hey-- what's life without risk?"   
   "They weren't prepared for Joel," Keiran commented. Jim, who had been trying not to think about that, took a sip of coffee to hide his face.   
   "True," Kreskin said cheerfully. "True. It should be a walk."   
   "How far away is Suffield?" Jim put in. Keiran smiled.   
   "About five hours, by car. Lucky for you I have money. I've got a flight booked for you tomorrow morning from here to Medicine Hat, and there'll be a Pathfinder waiting at what passes for the airport." Twenty-four hours ago, Jim might have been concerned by the prospect of breaking into a Canadian military installation with three obviously crazy people who might or might not have super powers, and who were obviously hell-bent on trashing the place. Now he just wanted to go back to his hotel and try to get some sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.   
   "I'll see you people in the morning."   
   "I'll take everyone to the airport," Keiran said. "Be here by seven."   
   "Right," Jim said, and left.  
  
 _*****  
I swear this is royal blood running through my skin. Can you see the state I'm in? Kiss it better.   
  -Peter Gabriel, Kiss That Frog  
*****_   
  
   If he dreamed that night, he didn't remember it when he woke just after dawn. His bed was rumpled, the second pillow across the room, and he felt as though he'd run a marathon -- but he couldn't say where the hours had gone. He didn't recall any more chimerical talks with Blair, but the kid was obviously dodging him, so that was no huge surprise. It didn't matter. They'd meet up for real before nightfall. He ate something before leaving the hotel, but only because he knew it was a good idea. Everything tasted like cardboard. Once everyone had met up at Keiran's house and piled into his Pathfinder, Jim looked at his partners in crime.   
   "What exactly is it you people do?" Kreskin gave him a grin with far too many teeth.   
   "Mandrake practices magic which is designed to befuddle and bewilder. Joel, I understand, you know about...and I am just a very convincing guy." Not a straight answer, really, but Jim didn't guess it was important. He'd find out soon enough.   
   "We know what it is you do," Mandrake said, startling him. "But you aren't the guy being poked and prodded by the government. What's special about your friend?"   
   "Nothing," Jim growled, and felt his stomach turn. "I mean, nothing...uh...paranormal. He's just a grad student who's been studying me."   
  
[And my senses leave when he does, and Incacha made him a shaman, but he doesn't do anything special. Not that I ever noticed. Jesus. Blair, you had better be all right when I get there.]   
  
   Jim could see that no one believed him, but he didn't care. This was private between him and Blair.   
   "All right," Keiran said at the airport. "Good luck, stay out of trouble, and don't forget that you're probably standing near anthrax." Then, casually but thoroughly, he kissed Joel goodbye. Jim was as horrified by the sight as he would have been by the sight of someone fucking a demon. Joel was capable of such unnatural things... Jim wondered if he was even human. How could anyone kiss something like that? He remembered the brush of Blair's lips against his.   
  
[How was it for you, Chief?]   
  
   God, this day was already longer than he'd expected, and he hadn't even boarded the plane.  
  
 _*****  
I spend most of my time looking for simple answers to difficult questions... I have employed Bureau guidelines, deductive technique, Tibetan method, instinct, and luck. But now, I find myself in need of something new. Something, which, for lack of a better word, we shall call magic.   
  -Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks  
*****_   
  
   Jim was not impressed when Kreskin and Joel went of to do reconnaissance and instructed him to stay at the hotel in Medicine Hat.   
  
[Stay in the truck, Sandburg.]   
  
   It chafed, but he couldn't risk alienating these people. He was sitting on the bed fuming when someone knocked at the door.   
   "It's Mandrake. Can I come in?" Jim opened the door and Mandrake shuffled in.   
   "Sorry to bother you, but do you have a glove?" Jim let him by and shut the door.   
   "Uh...no. Sorry. Why?" Mandrake held up his left hand, and Jim was glad for his dimmed senses. The hand was a bright glowing orange.   
   "How did that happen?"  
  
   Mandrake gave him an embarrassed grin.   
   "I was setting something up and I had a spell accident. It's not serious. But," he added, "you can see why they call me Mandrake." Jim must have looked as confused as he was, because Mandrake laughed.   
   "It's sort of getting on me for being a screw-up. I'm a little accident prone."   
   "I-" Jim began. "I...uh...if I could do that, even by accident, I'd be impressed."   
   "Well... it's not especially useful." Jim barked a laugh.   
   "That's not the point." Mandrake's smile grew.   
   "You're not used to magic, are you?" Jim thought about that.   
   "I've seen things," he said slowly, "and I've never had any trouble believing my eyes. I'm not in any position to reject the supernatural. But this past week... it's been a little over the top."   
   "You happened upon a magical community. And from what I hear, you belong." He could feel his jaw starting to twitch.   
   "I don't want to be ghettoized."   
   "What?"   
   "I realize I'm a freak of nature. I accept that. But I don't want my life and identity to centre around it."   
  
[Now there's a losing battle.]   
  
   "You're not a freak-- you have a gift."   
   "You sound like Sandburg."   
   "Is that your friend?"   
   "Yes." Mandrake tilted his head.   
   "I don't want to be rude, but I think you were lying about him earlier." Jim sighed. No real point in lying now. "I was... sort of. God knows he's special but I don't know what he does."   
   "Why do you say he's special?"   
   "I can't describe it. He's... you know what I am, right?"   
   "Yeah. More or less."   
   "Well, mostly he helps me keep my senses under control." Mandrake looked sympathetic.   
   "Magic runs wild sometimes." Jim opened his mouth to say that it wasn't magic, just a genetic thing, but changed his mind. When it came right down to it, Tom Maranchuk had been right about one thing-- Blair had a half-finished dissertation and a pile of tests; Jim had his visions and Inchacha's words... but neither of them really knew anything.   
   "I knew a shaman years ago. He was with the Chaopec in Peru. When he died, he passed the role of shaman to Blair. It was the last thing he did."   
   "Shaman. Interesting. What can he do?"   
  
[Good fucking question.]   
  
   "I don't know. I just know I... need him around. He makes the senses work." Jim shrugged. "I love him like crazy, and I can't explain it. He's a great person; he's my best friend... I have lots of reasons to care about him, but this depth of feeling, it's way beyond the pale. There's something going on that's outside my experience. And I think..." Jim remembered Blair's eyes in the vision as he sent Jim away. "I know it's the same for him."   
   "Right." Mandrake considered that. "Most people's friendships take place in a paddling pool. Ocean swimming can be difficult."   
   "You're preaching to the choir," Jim acknowledged, "but actually... it's not that difficult." He smiled. "I like him." There was a knock on the door, startling them both.   
   "Okay, guys," Kreskin called. "Time to go."  
  
 _*****  
These are not the droids you're looking for.   
  -Obi-wan Kenobi, Star Wars  
*****_   
  
   Jim had been surprised, as they left for Suffield, to find ghosts and witches and superheroes crowding the street. In all the commotion, he'd forgotten about Hallowe'en.   
  
[Blair will not be pleased.]   
  
   Hallowe'en was a favourite of Blair's, a purely pagan celebration of the bizarre. He was going to be unhappy when he found out he'd missed it.   
  
[I'll make it up to you, Chief.]   
  
   They had decided to arrive in the early evening, when it wouldn't be dark enough to complicate matters, but most of the staff was likely to have gone home. Jim looked out the window at the prairie and was drawn in by the distance to the horizon. It was possible to believe that, if your eyes were stronger, you could see forever. He decided never to mention that idea to Sandburg.   
   "You see those?" Kreskin was gesturing at a herd of horses to the left of the Pathfinder.   
   "They look wild," Jim said.   
   "They are. The locals have some funny name for them...'grumbies' or something. They're the only animals that live out here. No cattle, no sheep, nothing people might eat. I understand they catch these horses for rodeos, but otherwise, they're left alone. Ah, here we are." Jim was astonished to find that Suffield was a town... a small one, but still a home to people. It was unsettling. He glanced at Joel, wondering what he was visiting on this community. Then he remembered his dream, the feel of blood on his skin, and decided he didn't care. [Not my tribe.] Blair wouldn't care for that attitude, but if he listened to everything Blair said, he'd hardly ever become involved in the full- scale guilt-soaked karmic disasters he enjoyed so much. Okay, truth be told, his moral lapses were on a layaway plan, and whatever happened tonight would probably cost him big for a long time. But he was going to do this, because if he listened to everything Blair said, he wouldn't have Blair around to ignore anymore.   
   "Gate's coming up," Kreskin told them.   
   "What do you want us to do?" Joel's voice raised gooseflesh on Jim's arms.   
   "Nothing. Do nothing. Keep quiet and let me work." They pulled up beside a gatehouse.   
   "I'm sorry gentlemen," the occupant told them, "but the station is closed."   
   "We're supposed to be here," Kreskin said. His voice was low and reasonable, something like Blair's when Blair was trying to put Jim's senses in order. The guard was nodding slightly.   
   "You've been instructed to give us visitor passes," Kreskin continued,   
   "and then you are to pretend we were never here. This is a confidential visit."   
   "Confidential," the guard repeated, "Yes sir." He handed over four visitor's passes. "Drive ahead." Kreskin rolled up his window and headed for the buildings.   
   "The Force," he said, "has a strong influence on the weak-minded."   
   "How long is the whammy you put on that guy gonna last?"   
   "Whammy," Kreskin said, "That's a great word. Nobody uses it anymore." Jim leaned forward in his seat.   
   "It should last about half an hour," Kreskin said quickly. "I figure we should move through the base together until you find what you're looking for. Then Mandrake and I will go off and create a distraction while you get him to the vehicle. Joel will make sure we aren't followed."   
   "Why don't you just convince someone to take us to Blair?" Kreskin shook his head.   
   "Would that I could. I have trouble influencing more than one person at a time. That guard will keep me busy until we leave."   
   "You're still in his head?"   
   "Can we discuss the details later?" Jim could see the sense in that.   
   "Okay," Mandrake said turning to Jim. "Which building do you think he's in?" Jim frowned.   
   "They did the recon; why don't you ask them?"   
   "Because he's your friend." Jim leaned back, frustrated, running his eyes over the buildings. These people were professional magicians; he was just some guy with hyperactive senses, and right now he wasn't even that. How did they expect-- [What was that?] Unbidden, his eyesight sharpened and his focus narrowed. He was scanning the roof of a small, one storey building just to the right of the vehicle. [There.] It was only visible for a moment, but Jim saw it easily... the flick of a panther's tail.   
   "That one," he said. Kreskin nodded.   
   "Let's go."   
  
_*****  
All my instincts, they return -- and the grand facade so soon will burn. Without a noise, without my pride, I reach out from the inside.   
  -Peter Gabriel, In Your Eyes  
*****_   
  
   It might have been possible for a scientist to tell what this building was used for. It wasn't possible for Jim. To him, one lab looked pretty much like another. Their visitor passes had acquired for them a guide, a young woman in civilian dress who looked at them oddly but led them around without complaint.   
   "Nothing too interesting here," she said, "just labs. If you come back in the morning..."   
   "This is fine," Mandrake assured her, hands carefully lodged in his coat pockets. "We were just asked to have a look around. I'm sure we won't be long."   
  
[Better not be, anyway.]   
  
   Jim tried to press his senses into service, but they were still sulking.   
  
[I'm looking for him, okay? The sooner I find him, the sooner you'll have him back... so help me out here.]   
  
   They'd been over the building pretty thoroughly, and Jim hadn't found any signs of Blair. His frustration was considering turning into panic when Joel tugged on his arm.   
   "Do you know him?" Jim looked where he was pointing and saw the panther again, pacing at the end of the hallway.   
   "How..." He turned to Joel. "I thought he was... in my head." Joel shrugged.   
   "You were wrong." Jim shook that off, and went to the end of the hall.   
   "There's nothing there," the girl called after him. The hall ended in a bookshelf. Jim tugged on it, feeling foolish, and didn't feel any less foolish when it failed to move. He turned away, and the panther growled. When he looked at the bookshelf again, the panther tensed and leapt into his chest, melding with him. As he steadied himself, he heard something below him, loud and insistent as a dozen warring drums. Heartbeats. Jim closed his eyes and took his hand from the wall, needing to focus on the sound. Filtering out one after another, he made his way to the one he was searching for. It was weak and rapid, but steady. Jim turned to the girl.   
   "Take us to the basement."   
   "There isn't one," she lied. "Just a crawlspace." He moved to her side and took out the gun he'd found in the backpack.   
   "Take us to the goddamned basement. I will not ask you a third time." She looked at him with emotionless eyes.   
   "Go ahead," she told him. "Beats the alternative." He couldn't scare her, obviously. Not worse than she already was. He turned to Kreskin.   
   "Make her do it."   
   "If I do that..."   
   "I know."   
   "You won't have much time."   
   "I know." He nodded.   
   "Once I tell her, we'll create a distraction. You'll only have a few minutes. Do not waste time."   
   "You're not dealing with an amateur." 'Okay." He faced the girl. "You're going to show him to the basement. You will answer any questions, but otherwise keep quiet and still while he finds his friend. Then, you'll lead him back up the stairs and allow him to leave. You will not set off alarms or try to stop him. Understand?"   
   "Yes."   
   "Good. Begin." It turned out that the bookcase really didn't move. Instead, she placed her hands between the shelf and the wall beside it and slid the wall back to reveal an elevator. Jim admired the workmanship, but it was clear that the whole cloak and dagger industry hadn't become any less ridiculous since his retirement. They rode down in silence. Jim felt an anxiety bordering on terror and checked Blair's heartbeat again. It hadn't changed.   
  
["I don't want to lead you here."]   
  
   That had to have been just a dream. Not a vision or a message, or a prophecy. Blair would never be so incredibly dense as to think Jim would stop looking for him.   
  
[What is it he didn't want me to see?]   
  
   He was going to find out soon enough. The doors opened on an antechamber, dimly lit, with beige plastic coveralls hanging from pegs and a row of overshoes beneath them. Instead of the usual rubber soles, these had a thick cushion of what looked like velour. On the door to the main part of the basement was a large sign which said, "Shh." Below that, a smaller sign gave more detailed instructions.   
   "Remain quiet at all times. If it is necessary to speak, do so briefly and in a whisper. All reflective jewelry and eyewear must be removed before entering the facility. Do not make sudden or extreme movements. Personnel wearing perfume or other heavily scented materials are required to use barrack showers before proceeding. Do not touch the occupants unless authorized for physical contact. Close this door firmly behind you."   
  
[I should get one of those for the loft.]   
  
   Jim put a hand on one of the coveralls. It was remarkably smooth.   
   "Do we have to..." The girl shook her head.   
   "It doesn't matter. Nothing helps."   
   "What's behind this door?"   
   "Project Aisthesis."   
   "What?"   
   "It was an attempt to create people with superhuman senses. They figured the subjects would have...uh...diplomatic applications." Spies. Jim's heart was pounding now, and part of him wanted to take Blair's advice, just walk away.   
   "Did it work?" She smiled without humour.   
   "Oh, the subjects have superhuman senses. No question about that." She pressed a button and the antechamber door swung open.  
  
 _*****  
Lived a good life, lived a sweet life, oh, I have a beautiful friend. I am breathless from the mercy of a smile. I'm standing on the brink of the most perfect love. I am saved.   
  -Jann Arden, Saved   
*****_   
  
   It was an asylum. There was no other way to describe it. They were standing in a large room, with a dozen smaller rooms leading off it. Probably individual cells, though Jim could not see why these men would need to be locked up. All around them, men in hospital gowns were shaking and rocking, and crying without sound. Jim recognized zone-outs in some of them, others just seemed to be lost in pain. Many of them had torn at their hospital gowns. Jim guessed that the friction of the cloth had been unbearable. Blair's heartbeat called to him and he answered, moving to the far end of the room. Blair lay on his back, eyes shut, breathing quietly. Beside him was one of the test subjects. As Jim moved closer could see that the subject had his face pressed against Blair's shoulder and a hand roughly gripping Blair's arm. It seemed that Blair had been trying to move away when he fell unconscious; his head was turned from the subject, and there were bruises on his arm where the subject's hand still held him. Jim smelled [rain] blood, and saw streaks on Blair's face, evidence of a recent nosebleed. There wasn't time for anything here, all he could do was take his partner and leave. He pulled the other man's hand from Blair's arm, and rolled him away. The subject's face turned to Jim as he rolled, and Jim nearly screamed at the sight of healing scars in the hollows where his eyes had been. Swallowing bile, he turned to Blair and slid his hands under Blair's legs and back. The contact felt wonderful, warm water on aching muscles, cool sheets on sunburned skin. He pulled Blair close and stood, cradling him. Blair sighed, and Jim pressed a kiss to his forehead.   
   "It's okay, Chief. I'm taking you home." It began almost as soon as Jim spoke, the keening. He winced, knowing from experience how harsh a human voice could be. If there was something he could do... [No time. Run.] He ran for the door, and the girl followed, the eerie cries chasing them all the way to the elevator. When the doors closed, Jim fell back against the wall in relief. Those men had been... [Don't]   
  
   If he had never met Blair...   
  
[Do this later, when he's safe.]   
  
   Jim hugged the body in his arms and buried his face in Blair's silky curls for a moment before the elevator stopped on the main floor. Instinctively, Jim pushed the girl in front of them as the door opened. His senses were ranging, searching for potential trouble. No one was waiting for them, but what Jim saw and heard as they left the elevator stopped him in his tracks. Moving lights, odd smells, colours he'd never seen before... some of him knew that this was Mandrake's distraction, that he needed to push through it and head for the vehicle, but the rest of him couldn't look away. He didn't feel it when soft hair brushed his cheek as Blair lifted his head from Jim's shoulder.   
   "Hey... big guy... this is not a good time. You *always* pick the worst times. Come on, Jim." The voice was rough and quiet, but it brought Jim back. He looked down into tired blue eyes. Blair rested his head on Jim's shoulder. There was an odd, quivering smile touching Blair's mouth as he reached up to lay a hand on Jim's face.   
   "You," he said, "I can help." Then the eyes were closed again, shutting Jim out.   
  
[Later. When he's safe.]   
  
   Jim made himself look away from Blair's face, toward the door. The Pathfinder was where they'd left it. One door was open, and a strange glow spilled out.   
  
[They're waiting for you.]   
  
   He had barely pulled the door shut behind him when the 4x4 lurched forward. Jim looked up and was startled to find Mandrake at the wheel.   
   "Where's--"   
   "Dead," Mandrake said. He didn't sound happy about it. "Which we're gonna be unless Joel does something..."   
   "I am," Joel said with perfect calm. "The fence is broken to our left. Farther. Now go straight." He shifted his attention to the rear view mirror. Jim set Blair down beside him and took out his gun. He was about to roll down the window when Experimental Station Suffield disappeared. Not a building, not a vehicle, not a soldier...nothing was left. The town stood meaninglessly around an empty field. Jim was so shocked by it, so scattered, that he forgot himself and looked into the eyes of an angry god. They were gleaming.   
   "The centre cannot hold," Joel said, and smiled. _*****  
If you set out to fix up your two best friends, making the restaurant   
reservation, lubricating the dinner conversation, and paying the bill,   
you'd be a catalyst. Also a cockeyed optimist, but that's another story.   
     --Jones and Wilson, An Incomplete Education  
*****_   
  
   They drove in the darkness for miles. Mandrake had told them that they were going to Calgary, so that their plane flight wouldn't be conspicuous.   
   Jim didn't say, "Conspicuous to who?"   
   He didn't say anything. He decided that he didn't care. It was silent in the vehicle, for the most part, and Joel was small enough that Jim couldn't see him in the front seat.   
   When the lights of Calgary appeared on the horizon, Jim looked at Blair and realized that he was desperate for touch. He pulled Blair onto his lap and slid a hand into Blair's hair. After a few minutes, Blair opened his eyes.   
   "I can't help noticing you didn't go home."   
  
   [Not just a dream.]   
  
   Jim was surprised how quickly, how easily, he could accept that.   
   "One more time," he replied, "for those who obviously weren't listening before-- we're partners, Sandburg."   
   Blair smiled, but it faded almost immediately.   
   "I didn't want you to see that."   
   Jim lay his face against Blair's.   
   "Blair... did you really think I didn't know about all of the things you saved me from?" He kissed Blair's cheek, then pulled back and took Blair's face in his hands. As he looked at Blair he felt affection, gratitude, absolute trust... and the catalyst, working its magic.   
  
   [I can't even see the shore from here. I want you to live forever.]   
  
   Blair shut his eyes, and Jim matched the kiss Blair had given him in their dream. Then, very carefully, he drew Blair to rest against his shoulder again.   
   "What day is it?" Blair asked sleepily.   
   "Hallowe'en. Sorry, Chief."   
   Blair was silent for a moment.   
   "Samhain," he whispered finally, and went back to sleep.   
   After a few more miles, Jim asked Mandrake what 'Samhain' meant.   
   "Pagan holiday," he said. "It falls on October 31st." After a pause, he added, "On Samhain, the gates between worlds are open for anyone with the courage to pass through them."   
   After days immersed in magic, after retrieving Blair from a world so dark he doubted they'd ever be free of it, Jim didn't have much use for the idea.   
   "It doesn't take courage," he said. "It takes bad fucking luck."   
   Mandrake opened his mouth to speak. Jim raises a hand.   
   "Don't. Just drive. Blair and I want to go home."   
  
_*****  
I lied...I stole in the name of fear, but I won't be silent here. I don't want   
somewhere to run to. I don't want somebody I can shake. Lord, I want my   
dignity again. Before I walk on fire, you gotta look me in the face. I won't   
flinch, and I won't turn away.   
     -Sophie B. Hawkins, Before I Walk On Fire  
*****_   
  
   The smell of blood woke him. It wasn't likely to catch on as a substitute for coffee.   
   After the past few days, Jim was conditioned to panic, and did so. He was halfway down the stairs before he realized that it wasn't very much blood.   
   By the time he reached the bathroom door, he'd figured out that Blair's heart rate was more or less normal. Sure, the kid seemed a bit anxious, but that was to be expected.   
   "Blair, you okay?"   
   Blair was washing a few drops of blood from the sink with one hand and holding kleenex to his nose with the other.   
   "Yeah," he said, "I guess so."   
   Jim had checked him over the night before. They had finally stumbled into the loft about half an hour before dawn, dead on their feet, but Jim had insisted that Blair relent to a quick sentinel exam. Jim had decided that Blair was exhausted and scared and generally abused, but that he'd live.   
   Now he looked at Blair's face in daylight and figured that whoever had given him that tap on the nose had gotten the worse end of the deal. Blair's arms were bruised, and his eyes were red, but otherwise he looked okay.   
   "Should I see the other guy?" he teased. Blair's brow furrowed for a moment, then his tired eyes widened to an almost implausible size. Jim could see the effort it took for Blair to erase confusion and surprise from his face, followed the muscles as they smoothed.   
   "Maybe. I don't know. Everything's kind of a blur."   
   His heart was racing, and as it sped up, the nosebleed got worse. Jim led Blair into the kitchen and sat him down.   
   "Keep still," he said There was a big secret lurking around here somewhere, but Jim didn't want to go hunting until that bleeding stopped.   
   Blair started to stand.   
   "I'm--"   
   Jim put a hand on Blair's shoulder and shoved him back into the chair.   
   "--fine," Blair finished, glaring at him.   
   "If that doesn't stop in ten minutes, I'm taking you to the hospital," Jim told him. Blair kept his eyes on Jim's, gauging his seriousness. Apparently satisfied, he relaxed in the chair.   
   "You're a bully, Ellison," he said, not unaffectionately.   
   "I am not a 'bully'," Jim lectured, as he set about making breakfast. "I am not some thug. I was in Covert Ops. At the very least, I'm your worst nightmare." He glanced at Blair and found the smile he'd been hoping for.   
   "You're a goon, Ellison," Blair said.   
   Jim sighed.   
   "You're missing the point, Sandburg, but I'll let it go."   
   The nosebleed stopped as Jim was setting the table for breakfast. They ate in reasonably comfortable silence. Jim waited until the table was cleared and Blair had moved to the living room before approaching the topic of the blood.   
   "Chief, how did you get the nosebleeds?"   
   Blair's shoulders tensed. As Jim rounded the couch, he could see Blair staring at nothing, lost in the construction of a lie.   
   "Don't," Jim said sharply. Blair looked up, frightened. Jim sat down across from him. "Don't lie to me," he said gently, "Please."   
   Blair took a deep breath.   
   "Okay... but you've gotta promise not to flip out."   
   "That is not a good beginning, Sandburg."   
   Blair actually laughed, and the tension left his shoulders.   
   "It's gonna sound worse than it is. I... I got them from trying to help those guys. You know, the...uh..."   
   "Yeah, I know. Did they hit you?"   
   "No. No, they weren't really that co-ordinated. Um... look, Jim, they weren't like you."   
   Jim drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. He was starting to get angry, and he wasn't sure why.   
   "How's that, Sandburg?"   
   "This was an experiment with... well, basically, psychic abilities. I'm not sure exactly how it worked. I guess they've been at this for a long time, and they've... It's never worked out." He looked down, and the tension was back. "They were starting to think that heightened senses invariably caused..."   
   Jim put his face in his hands.   
   "And then they heard about me."   
   "Yeah. Tom told his assistant-- You know about that?"   
   "Oh yes. Tom's dead." Blair looked up so quickly that Jim couldn't help smiling. "I didn't do it, Chief."   
   "Oh. Anyway, they-- What happened to Tom?"   
   "Later. Keep talking."   
   "They asked Tom why he thought you were okay, and he told them I had something to do with it. He showed them my master's thesis."   
   "Jesus, Blair, I think I'm going to burn every copy of that thing."   
   "I've considered that myself," Blair admitted. "Tom, being Tom, implied that I was able to keep your senses in order because I had some psychic ability, so they figured they'd take me to their test subjects and see if I could do anything for them."   
   He stopped there, studied the carpet again.   
   "And?" Jim prompted, his voice soft. Blair's shoulders were quivering. After a long silence, he raised his head, and Jim was shaken by the misery he saw on Blair's face.   
   "I couldn't."   
   Jim opened his mouth to say something, tell Blair it was okay, he didn't have to talk about it, but Blair was going on.   
   "I tried, Jim. I swear, I ..." Tears were falling now, and Jim went to sit beside him on the couch.   
   "I know," he soothed, putting his arms around Blair. "Ssh..."   
   "They were in so much pain, and they all grabbed at me because they thought... somehow they knew I was supposed to help them. I tried so hard, but I couldn't and then I got this headache and nosebleeds and I couldn't get away from them anymore..." Jim was scared to crowd him, tried to pull away, but Blair pressed in closer. Jim tightened his hold.   
   "Blair... c'mon, don't..."   
   "How could I try to get away from them when they needed me so badly?" Blair was sobbing,but Jim understood every word. He bitterly hated his hearing.   
   "You couldn't help them, sweetheart," he said, the endearment slipping out unnoticed. "I saw them..." He thought of those hollowed out eyes, and shuddered. "I know you tried, I know. Nothing you could do."   
   He rocked Blair until the crying tapered off, then pulled back, and studied Blair's face.   
   "Blair, does it hurt you to help me?"   
   Blair shook his head.   
   "No, Jim, this is one of the reasons I didn't want to tell you. I-- just a minute."   
   Blair went to the washroom and washed his face, then came back and sat next to Jim. He'd composed himself in there, and met Jim's eyes steadily.   
   "I've never gotten sick from helping with your senses. Frustrated, angry, damned near homicidal, sure..."   
   Jim rewarded him with a smile, and Blair went on.   
   "They were different. With you, I just talk, and it helps. They were... reaching into me, somehow. I don't understand it."   
  
   [Reaching back, Blair. You slide under my skin every time you speak to me that way.]   
  
   Blair sat up straight.   
   "We left them there. We have to tell someone..."   
   Jim shook his head.   
   "No. We do not have to tell someone. We have to keep perfectly quiet about this."   
  
   [And even that may not be enough.]   
  
   "But they..."   
   "They're dead."   
   "What?"   
   "Remember that weird little guy with the green eyes?"   
   "Yeah."   
   "He eliminated the place. Completely. Not a brick, not a piece of paper, not one person, there is nothing left."   
   Blair took time to process that.   
   "How the hell did he do that?"   
   "He looked at it."   
   Blair's jaw dropped.   
   "That's a real good thing you done," he said under his breath. Jim looked at him questioningly. "What? Oh. Nothing. Forget it. What is that guy?"   
   "A monster." Jim settled back against the couch. "I don't know... Isn't classifying monsters your area?"   
   "No. That's, like, cryptozoology," Blair said, pretending to misunderstand. "I just study sentinels."   
   Jim reached to ruffle his hair.   
   "Okay. Have it your way."   
   Blair gave Jim the sweet smile that he tended to produce when he got his way. It vanished quickly.   
   "They're dead," he repeated.   
   Jim felt his jaw clenching.   
   "Best thing for them," he said. Blair gaped at him, horrified. The kid never seemed able to believe that death could be the best thing for anyone   
   "Trust me," Jim said.   
   Blair put a hand on Jim's chest.   
   "Jim... you can't mean that. They were human beings. They probably had lives and people who cared about them. They just needed--"   
   "They needed more than anybody could give them, including you. If I hadn't met you when I did..." It didn't take sentinel vision to see that he didn't want to take Blair to that place right now. "It doesn't matter. That didn't happen. I was lucky enough to meet you, and I'm fine."   
  
   [And if we hadn't met, I'd like to think somebody would have been kind enough to kill me.]   
  
   Blair didn't look at all comforted, but he dropped the topic, which was enough.   
   "So," he asked, "how much trouble are we in?"   
   That was a fine question. Jim wished he had a fine answer.   
   "I'm not sure. I guess it depends on how many people outside Suffield knew that you were there. The military staff and the scientists probably slept in the barracks,so... we don't have to worry about them. I would guess the station had civilian staff who lived in the town, but I don't know how much these people were told."   
   "So, it's possible they won't be able to trace us?"   
  
   [In the sense that anything is possible...]   
  
   "It's...possible, yeah."   
   Jim didn't think he sounded convincing, but Blair seemed to accept it. He probably need to believe that, at least for now... and there was no harm in letting it go, for awhile.   
   "You said Tom was dead?"   
   "Yeah. That research assistant killed him."   
   "Remind me," Blair said, "never to put in for a research assistant."   
   Jim smiled a little.   
   "The Edmonton police are still looking for a suspect. I didn't tell them very much."   
   "But... that means they know who you are."   
   There was no denying the truth of that. Jim nodded. He could see Blair following that through,seeing the obvious trail Jim had left, but the kid said nothing.   
  
   [Guess we're never going to talk about this either. Not until we have no choice anymore.]   
  
   "Whatever happens," he told Blair, "we'll be okay."   
   It was more wishful thinking than fact, but Blair appeared to appreciate the sentiment. He leaned against Jim's shoulder as Jim turned on CNN, and neither of them spoke for a while.   
  
_*****  
  
The word conspire comes from the Latin conspirare, "to breathe together"   
     -The National Insecurity Council, It's a Conspiracy  
*****_   
  
   "I can't believe," Jim said, "that an entire military station can vanish, and not one word about it on the news."   
   "Careful Jim," Blair muttered from behind the cushion he'd wrapped himself around. "You're starting to sound like one of those conspiracy theorists."   
   Jim gave him an evil look.   
   "It's not like I don't know anything about military cover-ups... but a whole town full of people woke up this morning, and found the station gone. How can that not make waves?"   
   The answer hung in the air, unspeakable.   
  
   [Because someone is going to a lot of trouble to keep it quiet. And that means someone will be coming after us... sooner or later.]   
  
   Blair's eyes were terribly sad.   
   "What did I get us into this time?"   
   Jim was holding Blair against his shoulder. He rested his chin on the top of Blair's head.   
   "I don't know. Maybe nothing. Don't panic."   
   As he spoke, Jim was thinking about plans he'd made years ago, just in case the government ever decided he was a loose end. They'd been made with only himself in mind,but he thought they could expand to serve two.   
   "Look, Chief, I know you set off this particular chain of events, but that doesn't matter. You know there are other people who know about me, and they would've found us eventually. At least this way we managed to figure out was going on and get ourselves free of it. This could've been a lot worse." He gestured at Blair's emergency overnight bag, the one he kept near the door of his room. "Is that thing ready?"   
   Blair raised his head.   
   "Uh... yeah."   
   "Good. C'mon."   
   Jim stood and offered Blair a hand, pulled him to his feet. Blair grabbed the bag and followed Jim from the loft.   
  
_*****  
  
At first I was scared when I opened up my head and the motor that was running was the mind of you  
  
*****_   
  
   "How long have you had this place?"   
   Blair was looking around the one-room cabin with something suspiciously close to admiration in his eyes.   
   "About four years. That's, uh ..." he nodded at the narrow bed. "That's why it's built for one."   
   "Right..." Blair sat down on the end of the bed. "What now?"   
   "We wait. We'll find out pretty quick if it's safe to go home."   
   Blair was running his fingers over the quilt, tracing the pattern.   
   "And if it isn't?"   
   "We move on. I have some things in place."   
   "You really were expecting this," Blair said, almost to himself.   
   "I wouldn't say expecting..."   
  
   [How about, "terrified of"?]   
  
   "You know I used to be a boy scout," he finished. Blair laughed.   
   "This is a little more prepared than most people get.'   
   "Hey, at least I don't have a bomb shelter."   
   Jim felt oddly at peace. He'd checked the truck for bugs and homing devices before they left, and he was positive they hadn't been followed. He felt safe here.   
   "I'm sorry, Chief... this plan of mine, if we have to use it, it's going to disrupt your life. A lot."   
   Blair grinned. He seemed to share Jim's strange happiness, and Jim wondered if there was something in the water out here.   
   "That," he told Jim cheerfully, "is not possible"   
  
   [Sure it is. You have a teaching job, you're close to a doctorate...]   
  
   Blair placed a hand on Jim's leg.   
   "You're the one who hates chaos," he reminded gently.   
   That was true. He did hate chaos, and as he'd told Blair when this whole mess started, he liked his life these days. Jim was going to say that it was all right, that he didn't mind, but when he looked into those concerned blue eyes he wound up telling the truth.   
   "I'll live."   
  
   [As long as you do.]   
  
   Blair's good mood had left, the sun going back behind clouds.   
   "Jim... I know I keep saying this to you, but I am so sorry..."   
   "I told you, it's probably all the same in the end. Just a matter of time until they showed up at our door,even if we had never gone to Edmonton." Jim shook his head. "What I can't get over is this whole `Sentinel as super- soldier' idea. There you are, listening for the enemy, a gun goes off..."   
   "Yeah, well, same problems as police work. And now that we've worked on your senses and you know how to control them, you're okay most of the time. I hate to admit this, but I'm not convinced that you even really need--"   
   "I am." Jim's tone was harsher than he'd intended, but he wasn't about to apologize for it. "My senses behave for you. If I don't see you for a few hours, even a day, it's usually all right. But after that..." He frowned, trying to find the right words. "You don't have to do anything most of the time. Doesn't mean you're not helping me. I don't know... we must have some sort of connection. I don't understand these things."   
  
   [I knew you were in the fountain.]   
  
   "There might be a psychological dependence," Blair offered.   
  
   [I didn't sense you. I couldn't *see* you, and you didn't have a pulse ...]   
  
   Blair tried to move his hand from Jim's leg, but Jim caught his hand with his own.   
   "You know better than that, Sandburg."   
  
   [I just knew.]   
  
   "Look, Jim, I know there was a time when you needed me, but--"   
  
   [You said I'd know where to find you. Don't pretend you don't understand this now.]   
  
   "Why are you doing this? You've spent three years convincing me of how much I do need you. I'm convinced. What's wrong with you?"   
   Blair was studying the quilt. Jim pressed his hand.   
   "Hey...Blair...what is it?"   
   Slowly, Blair raised his head.   
  
_*****  
  
I was scared when I looked at my reflection and the shine I saw were the eyes of you.  
  
*****_   
  
   "It just means we're kind of stuck with each other."   
   "Oh, God, is that all?"   
   Blair looked terribly young.   
   "I thought it would... bother you."   
   Jim was confused.   
   "Why would it all of a sudden bother me?"   
   "What do you mean, all of a sudden? You just found out..."   
   Jim would've laughed if he hadn't been sure that it would hurt Blair.   
   "You think when I saw those... other sentinels, that's the first time I realized? I told you in the car, Blair, and I can't believe it was news to you then... I have always known that I needed you. I got used to it a long time ago. It used to bother me, some, but it's okay now. We like each other. I'm not going anywhere. I don't see a problem."   
   Blair still looked miserable, and Jim was frightened by it.   
   "Chief... you're not going anywhere, are you? I mean... do you want to?"   
   He shook his head violently, curls flying.   
   "No! You're family to me, Jim. Of course I don't want to leave. I just..."   
   "You just what?"   
   "I might have no choice."   
   Jim sighed, ran his thumb across the back of Blair's hand.   
   "If something comes up, if you have to go on an expedition or something, whatever it is...we'll deal with it."   
   "You don't get it! I might have to leave you permanently, Jim. I almost--"   
  
   [Died.]   
  
   He didn't say it. Neither of them could   
  
_*****  
I was scared when you touched my lips  
*****_   
  
   "You came back," Jim said softly.   
  
_*****  
and the breath I took was a breath that shook me  
*****_   
  
   "You called me," Blair answered.   
  
_*****  
with a shock like a flame, as eternal as a song, and the song is you and I  
*****_   
  
   "But I can't promise that I'll be able to do it again."   
   Jim moved to kneel in front of the bed Carefully, he took Blair's hands.   
   "Blair, sometimes I feel like I'm in remission. I'm not cured."   
   "It's not a damned disease!"   
   "It would kill me without you, Blair. I would have died. But instead I met you and I've had all of these good years... maybe the best I've ever had. If you died tomorrow I'd follow you, but that wouldn't diminish the gift you've already given me."   
  
_*****  
Whenever I'm alone and you're lost out there, I can feel you breathe 'cause our lungs we share.  
*****_   
  
   He placed his hands on Blair's face.   
   "My only complaint is that you're so reckless... you're so careless with both our lives."   
  
_*****  
When I'm alone, anytime, anywhere, I can feel a heartbeat 'cause our blood we share.*****_   
  
   Those huge, pretty eyes were dark. That chestnut hair was falling forward as Blair looked down at him. Jim understood all of the things people said about angels.   
   "Blair... I love you like my next breath."   
  
_*****  
I was scared when you came into my room  
*****_   
  
   Jim couldn't hold him close enough.   
  
_*****  
The walls became the sea  
*****_   
  
   He lifted them both to the bed and laid Blair back, running both hands over his body, stroking his hair. Blair reached for him, returned every touch. He met Jim's eyes   
  
_*****  
Your voice was the moon  
*****_   
  
   and said nothing. Jim understood it was consent.   
  
_*****  
Oh, when you rocked me in your arms...  
*****_   
  
   He was surprised by his instincts... this wasn't what he'd expected, not even something he could have guessed. They were going to rein in their bond tonight, give in to the drive they always felt to get closer, closer.   
  
* _****I will let you breathe through me  
*****_   
  
   They were really going to do this. He touched his mouth to Blair's and Blair's mouth opened to him and Jim didn't want a thing he couldn't have.   
  
_*****  
I will let you  
*****_   
  
   There came a time, later, when Jim knew that it never really would be enough. He'd always want Blair closer, always want to draw Blair into his skin. But, oh, god...   
  
_*****  
Be with me  
*****_   
  
   He'd take what he could get. Gladly.   
   Sometime close to morning, when Blair asked him if he could stand it if it turned out they couldn't go home, Jim kissed him and smiled.   
   "I am home."   
  
_*****  
-final 14 quotations from Breathe, by Maria McKee  
*****_   
  
Feedback welcome.


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